Resume

I am a Cloud Architect and Engineer with 20+ years of practical experience in design and full-stack development. With this broad yet deep technical background, I love designing innovative solutions that the pedantic engineer in me can execute to pixel perfection.

Certifications

Work Experience

Career Break

Microsoft, April 2025 - present

• Taking a break to focus on personal health and family.
• Upskilling to AI engineering and technologies.

Senior Software Engineer, Azure CXP

Microsoft, October 2024 - April 2025

• Full stack engineer and DevOps SME for Azure Workload Model application.
• Automated Microsoft Security and Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) requirements for identifying, reporting and fixes. Pipeline needed customization for our multi-repo and non-standard git workflow.

Senior FastTrack Engineer

Microsoft, 02/2020 - 10/2024

• Led architecture design sessions and reviews with Azure customers, specializing in topics of cloud native applications, Containers, DevOps, Kubernetes and cloud security.
• Co-led the Cloud Native Priority Area across the global FastTrack for Azure team to gather and analyze customer experiences and feedback, identifying themes and improvements, which were shared with Azure product groups, esp. Azure Developer Division and Azure Kubernetes Service.
• Authored articles for Azure Architecture Center and Cloud Adoption Framework, including End-to-end governance in Azure when using CI/CD (principal author), Baseline architecture for an Azure Kubernetes (AKS) cluster (contributor), and Choose an Azure container service (principal author).
• EMEA Co-Lead, Women in Azure CXP Employee Resource Group (ERG).

Cloud Solution Architect

Microsoft Germany, 04/2019 - 01/2020

• Delivered cloud architecture and DevOps guidance to enterprise customers in the financial services and insurance (FSI) sector as they migrated to Azure.

Enterprise Architect

Allianz Deutschland AG, 05/2017 - 03/2019

• Served on escalation task force to reconcile often opposing business, IT and security requirements, to advance migration to the public cloud.
• Developed a cloud storage concept for objects with security and bringing together stakeholders to consolidate use-cases and effort, as well as supporting the IT-stability task force to increase the resilience of our overall application portfolio.
• Co-authored AMQP messaging concept to satisfy security and cloud operations requirements, leveraging naming conventions for instant secure access without manual registry of authorizations matrices.
• Open-sourced mini version of AZD-Cloud Stack with containerized components incl. custom Jenkins server for CI/CD demos and external presentations.
• Founded “Allianz Overflow” for internal developer questions about software and architecture.
• Coached over 100 developers in the Agile Training Center (ATC), driving change in company IT and developer culture.
• Mentored ATC developer teams, helping them to migrate applications to new in-house cloud infrastructure and implementing DevOps. This meant pair programming with developer teams to develop git workflows that correlate with their business processes, software architecture and git skills, but also automatically trigger continuous integration and delivery via GitHub Enterprise.

Architect

metafinanz - Informationssysteme GmbH, 06/2016 - 04/2017

• Consulted as a full-stack JavaScript developer for parent company Allianz on pilot migration of internal line of business underwriting application to public cloud.
• Leveraged web technologies (incl. Docker and JavaScript) to create new interface layers to existing enterprise systems, i.e. brown field applications.

Full Stack Developer, Responsive Email Consultant

Freelance, 09/2014 - 05/2016

• Coded responsive HTML E-Mail layouts that work across all major email clients including Outlook, Gmail on Android and more.
• Created ruby based E-Mail Build system for clients to manage multiple templates while leveraging shared code with templates and YAML data. This system is distributed as a private ruby gem.
• Consulted on E-Mail Design and responsive layout strategies.
• Consulted on E-Mail as part of holistic User Experience Design.
• Optimized every email developer's workflow the Email Layout Calculator.
• Designed and developed full-stack applications with Rails, specializing in individually tailored solutions, for example educational online discussion software and a CMS with custom Google Maps functionality.

Founder

Offsides UG, 01/2014 - 12/2017

• Founded software company Offsides UG to develop own Software as a Service (SaaS) product, which failed.
• Designed and developed Antwort E-Mail Signature Generator instead.

UX Developer

Freelance, 01/2013 - 09/2014

• Targeted clients and startups with existing websites but poor UX, who need something in between a freelance designer and full service agency.
• Combined responsive HTML/CSS solutions packaged with design and UX experience for pragmatic, immediate and actionable recommendations.
• Overhauled frontend architectures to use modern best practices, especially responsive design and Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS.
• Conducted Information Architecture analysis and content strategy consulting.
• Helped companies migrate their websites to a responsive solution using their existing software architecture, including Symfony, TYPO3 or Ruby on Rails.

Co-Founder, Chairwoman

Refresh Munich e.V., 11/2012 - present

• Refresh Munich is a community for designers and developers and a registered non-profit association.
• Organizing monthly meetups and quarterly events with other members.
• Co-organized 2013 and 2015 UX Munich Conference.

Frontend Developer

InterNations, 02/2012 - 02/2013

• First dedicated Frontend Developer at the established and growing global platform for expats.
• Developed frontend HTML and CSS architecture for the Activity version 1.0 feature launch, including comments, calendars, and photo gallery modules over several months.
• Introduced Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS to team, untangling deep CSS specificity and reducing style dependencies for greater scalability.
• Collaborated closely with the product designer and product manager to create and improve products within the agile budget and two week release cycle.
• Overhauled existing marketing and transactional Emails to be responsive, simultaneously releasing the Antwort Open Source template with support from the company.
• Worked closely with 5 backend developers directly in the Symfony app, participating in daily stand ups, planning poker, and scrum meetings.

Sr. User Interaction Designer

Ancestry.com Deutschland GmbH, Munich, 07/2008 – 12/2011

• Researched, analyzed, designed and created projects to improve German user flow to drive higher signup conversion, including homepages, deny pages, E-Mail core flows.
• Planned, designed and created landing pages, newsletters, emails, microsites and more to support marketing campaigns and user acquisition goals.

Web Designer and Content Engineer

Learntoquestion.com, Boston, MA, 06/2000 – 06/2017

• Responsible for installation, modification and maintenance of various open-source software that power the website from discussion board software to content management systems.
• Lead designer of the Summer 2007 design refresh, updating the design with cleaner more minimal designs and splashes of color.
• Designed and developed Rails based discussion board software in 2015 to meet specific needs of an online classroom, e.g. deadlines and mobile support for low-income students using smartphones.

English Language Teaching Assistant

Fulbright Commission, Munich, Germany, 09/2007 – 06/2008

• Taught own 11th grade weekly conversational English class.
• Presented American culture, history and politics to German students.
• Aided teachers in the classroom with group work, especially in younger classes.

Translator

artelino GmbH, Icking, Germany, 10/2007 – 03/2008

• Translated articles about contemporary Asian art and artists from German into English.

Assistant Manager

Hong Kong Cafe, Danvers, MA, 09/2003 – 08/2007

• Handled customer complaints and concerns respectfully and professionally.
• As the 2006 New Year's Eve Floor Manager, facilitated and organized the process of receiving, fulfillment, and delivery of $10,000+ worth of Chinese food in 6 hours.
• Helped improve 2006 New Year's Eve average wait time during peak dinner hours from over 90 minutes in 2005 to less than 45 minutes for most orders in 2006.

Education

Tufts University

B.A. in International Relations, Economics and German Studies, May 2007

• Summa Cum Laude, GPA: 3.86, Honors: Dean's List, Phi Beta Kappa, William Howell Reed Prize in German
• Distinguished Achievement Award in International Relations
• Sigma Iota Rho, International Relations Honor Society, Vice President
• 2005-2006, Study abroad at Eberhard Karls Universität through Tufts in Tübingen
• Teaching Assistant for students of German 1 and German 2.