Manuel Puchta

I'm a Web Engineer. What I love to do: Building easy-to-use, responsive and accessible interfaces that put a smile on the face of people using them. Ensuring that everything scales well by designing and implementing the underlying architecture. Shipping frequently to live. Making a product better. Working in a team.

Work experience

Senior Frontend Developer @ Die Techniker

(Now) Since Sep 2023 - Hamburg (Germany)

Team: Web Squad

Web Engineering: Working on tk.de.

• Collaborating within a cross-functional team, I contribute to the gradual redesign of a complex frontend user interface, ensuring adherence to accessibility best practices (WCAG 2.1).
• Within community of practices, I proactively help to maintain and update internal frameworks/component systems, for example to ensure security through Node.js LTS version updates.
• Prototyping/evaluating of a performant and reliabile new frontend tech stack.
TypeScript, Vanilla JS, React, HTML5, CSS3, SCSS, FreeMarker, GitHub

Senior Software Developer (Frontend) @ DKB Code Factory

(~0.5 years) Feb 2023 - Jul 2023, remote from Hamburg (Germany)

Team: Business customers (trustee platform)

Web Engineering: I was co-responsible for the development of a new web platform (Full stack with frontend focus) in a cross-functional team.

• In close collaboration with UX I initiated an MVP using Nuxt 3 to address a crucial business requirement associated with BaFin regulations.
• Empowered our team to actively contribute to the internal Design Systems (Vue 2 and 3).
TypeScript, Vue 3, Nuxt 3, Tailwind, Design System, Vitest, Node.js, GitLab CI/CD

Sabbatical 🌴

Lots of time on the bike, recharging batteries, finding a new interesting job.

Senior Web Developer @ Tomorrow

(~2 years) Apr 2020 - Jun 2022, Hamburg (Germany)

Teams: Customer Relationship and Growth

Web Engineering: I planned and established a future proof web tech stack from scratch and did cross-team alignments and stakeholder communications.

• Re-creation of tomorrow.one marketing website, self-service pages and sign-up process by implementing performant Next.js frontend solutions, coupled with a streamlined asset management for enhanced efficiency.
• Implemented a headless CMS (RESTful API), empowering marketing and product teams to achieve complete independence in creating and publishing content, along with campaign pages.
• To ensure scalability and maintenance, I collaborated with UX/UI designers to implement a design system from scratch that serves as the foundation for nearly all Tomorrow websites today (published as a private npm package to a self hosted Nexus repository).
• Stretched myself, teaching myself Kubernetes, Skaffold and GitLab CI/CD pipelines configuration to create dockerized web frontends (custom build, test and deployment processes).
TypeScript, React, Redux, styled-components, Next.js, Storybook, npm, Jest, Testing Library, Node.js, Headless CMS, Kubernetes, docker, GitLab CI

Senior Web Developer @ Demodern - Creative Technologies

(~3 years) May 2017 - Mar 2020, Hamburg (Germany)

During my time at Demodern, I was part of a team that wanted to develop the most intuitive, visual compelling and performant web car configurator to date. I played a key role in the front-end architecture and was a mentor for up to three developers. It was so much fun!

• Web Engineering: 3D car configurator application for smart. [more information]
  React, Redux, styled-components, webpack, Jest, Jenkins, PCF
• Web Engineering: Automotive retail experience for smart. [more information]
  React, Redux, SCSS, webpack

(Junior) Web Developer @ Jung von Matt

(~5 years) Feb 2012 - Apr 2017, Hamburg (Germany)

I learned a lot during my time at Jung von Matt. Thanks to great colleagues and projects, I gained exceptional skills in responsive (mobile first) web development and was able to get to know a wide variety of tech stacks, always tailored to the respective client requirements.

• Web Development: Campaign platform with several specials to support the Elbphilharmonie hall opening, project was called "Countdown Elbphilharmonie". [more information]
  Django, AngularJS v1, SCSS with BEM
• Frontend Development: BMW VISION NEXT 100 special, a full screen video-like web application that allowed users to discover BMWs vision car interactively (custom Vanilla JS MVC application). [more information]
  Vanilla JS, SCSS
• Frontend Development: "DFB Ehrenrunde" campaign platform (Django framework based).
  AngularJS v1, Less

Studies

• Media Informatics, Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), University of Applied Sciences Hof, Germany.
  2007 - 2012

Skills

• (Frontend) Web Engineering 10+ years of experience, writing clean and maintainable code.
• Technical Lead Software architecture, code review, communication, mentoring - I'm always happy and curious to improve and reflect current workflows within the team and company in a collaborative way. I'm a fan of flat hierarchies, transparency, self-management and empowerment.
• UX/UI Development I love to create easy-to-use interfaces and to work closely with the UX/UI Designers to create the best user journey.
• Prototyping I like to verify new product ideas through prototypes.
• Technical Project Management Project planning; stakeholder, client and service provider communication; my favourite agile process frameworks are Scrum and Kanban (with periodically team retrospectives).
• Working remotely I see a lot of advantages in remote work, especially when good communication and supportive processes are established within a company.
• Favourite tools, topics: JavaScript (ES Next, TypeScript / React, Redux), HTML5, CSS3 (SCSS, CSS in JS), Node.js, webpack, Babel, git feature-branch workflow, test-driven development (TDD) with Jest, CI/CD, DevOps, scalability, performance

Still here?

Thank you.

Mail: hallo[at]manuelpuchta.de