simsab

About Me

I am a passionate developer and architect for web applications with more than ten years of experience and have contributed my expertise and creativity to more than 100 exciting projects.

While specializing in the use of PHP, I strive to maintain the highest standards in terms of efficiency, manageability and reusability of my software. My work follows design patterns, is redundancy-free, modular and performance-optimized.

Throughout my career I have gained experience working on short-term projects with different agencies as well as on long-term projects in startups and established companies. I am an experienced and talented team leader and have a strong entrepreneurial spirit.

In my spare time I enjoy different kinds of art and culture. I particularly like life drawing, drawing portraits and comics, playing the guitar and experimenting with digital production of acoustic and visual material. Filippo Baraccani and I present our work at notmybiz.com.

Professional Skills

Web Development, Backend Development, Webserver Configuration, Accessibility, Rapid Prototyping, Usability, Code Generation, Standards Compliance, Technical Conception, Data Modeling, Internationalization, Continuous Integration, Unit Testing, Social Networks, Affiliate Systems, Scrum, Application Monitoring, Outsourcing, Object-Oriented Programming, Relational Database Management Systems, Scalability, Entity Relationship Models, Communication Gateways, Object-Relational Mapping, Regular Expressions, Scaffolding, Quality Control, Framework Development, User-Generated Content, Web-Crawling, Refactoring, Web Services, Booking Engines, E-Learning, Pair Programming, Entrepreneurship, Programming Paradigms, Frontend Development, Agile Development, Kanban, Content Management Systems, User Experience Design, Artificial Intelligence, Data Migration, Offshoring, APIs, Search Engine Optimization, Web-Based Training, Web Application Architecture, Model-View-Controller Design Pattern, Test-Driven Software Development, Database Design, Content Syndication, Performance Optimization, Load Balancing, Database Conversion, Caching, Scraping, Web 2.0, Version Control, Cross-Browser Compatibility, Semantic Web, E-Commerce, Open Source Software, Deployment Strategies, Product Development, Design-Lead Planning, Leadership

Programming Languages and Technologies

PHP
MySQL
PCRE
Python
JavaScript
ActionScript
XHTML
CSS
XML
XSLT
AJAX
MXML

Frameworks and Auxiliary Tools

Magento
Zend
Drupal
WordPress
CakePHP
CodeIgniter
Apache
nginx
lighttp
varnish
pound
munin
Memcache
eAccelerator
APC
XCache
XDebug
Phing
Subversion
PHPUnit
Selenium
Bamboo
JIRA
trac
jQuery
mootools
Firebug
Google Analytics
Google Website Optimizer

Long-Term Projects

nacho

Web application framework (2011) ⋅ Source code ⋅ Details

Combining the principles of rapid development and convention over configuration, the MVC-based web application framework nacho is both lightweight and extremely powerful. Many PHP 5.3 features have been utilized in the development of nacho, among others: Reflection, magic methods, error backtracking, class abstraction, namespaces, type hinting and autoloading.

Furthermore, the software package provides extensive functionality in means of localization, session and exception handling, request rerouting, templating, output buffering and user input validation. The implemented database abstraction layer is outstanding, supporting database systems from SQL to MS Office.

cheese

Content management system for nacho (2011) ⋅ Source code ⋅ Details

Apart from useful events-based frontend functionality that supports common user interaction patterns, cheese provides secure authentication mechanisms as well as highly flexible CRUD interfaces that can be configured in a clever MVC manner.

Motivado Projects

Coaching Preview: Configure and test coaching elements (2011) ⋅ Source code
Coaching Import: Import coaching models into database (2011) ⋅ Source code
Coaching Test: Test coachings before deployment (2011) ⋅ Source code
Coaching API: API for Motivado's coaching content (2011) ⋅ Source code
Coaching UI: Communication between frontend and API (2011) ⋅ Source code

One-Day Projects

Avatar Rating: Rate a selection of avatar images (2012) ⋅ Source code
readosaur: Manage and read your favourite RSS feeds (2011) ⋅ Source code
ask.me: Ask and answer questions (2011) ⋅ Source code
Dialogues: Multi-format instant messaging dialogues (2011) ⋅ Source code
Scraper: Library for scraping product catalogues (2010) ⋅ Source code
Filtering names: Filtering names by configurable patterns (2010)
Trend: The next musical trend (2009)
Beerball Simulator: Simulation of a Beerball match (2009) ⋅ Source code

Work Experience

since 12/2011

Project CTO at Rocket Internet GmbH

At Rocket Internet, I am in charge of coordinating weekly launches of worldwide e-commerce projects and managing more than 50 software developers, project managers and system administrators.

since 1999 13 years

Web and software development ⋅ Details

My main focus lies with software architecture, core and backend development, technical conception, prototyping, refactoring and database design. In addition, I am well grounded in usability, search engine optimization and I have an eye for good design.

11/2011 - 11/2011 1 month

Senior developer and team leader at Rocket Internet GmbH

08/2009 - 11/2011 2 years, 4 months

Founder and CTO of Motivado GmbH ⋅ Details

Motivado is the first platform for interactive video-coaching and assists people in finding solutions for personal issues and achieving goals. We close the gap between cost-intensive personal coaching and the general guidebook market with our approach of mass customization for coaching content.

I developed Motivado's complex software with the support of an agile team of three to seven members. Our innovative technologies have been awarded by Germany's Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology.

We have been live since November 2010 and deliver hundreds of premium quality products to our satisfied customers.

01/2009 - 08/2009 8 months

Freelance work as a senior web developer ⋅ Details

Online agencies:

08/2007 - 01/2009 1 year, 6 months

Core and feature development for the startup mytourclips AG ⋅ Details

Multimedia, video streaming, social network/community, editiorially maintainable and user-generated content, internationalization, scaling, high availability, affiliating, booking engines and content aggregation

In June 2008 I managed an extensive refactoring of the existing web application on the basis of my web application framework nacho. The goal was to prepare the platform for high traffic and the international establishment of the product.

07/2006 - 10/2007 1 year, 4 months

Animation, background/character clean up and compositing assistance for the cartoon Judas & Jesus by Inkarnatoons

06/2000 - 12/2008 8 years, 7 months

Software development and website maintenance for the 111 Group and the subsidiary companies of the real estate and tourism branches

Contact Me

I am always looking for exciting new challenges and the opportunity to enhance my skills. If you are interested in a collaboration, please send me an email. I will also gladly provide you with sample work or more detailed project descriptions. You can contact me at:

contact@simsab.net (via e-mail)
simonsablowski (via Skype)

You are welcome to visit my profile in the following social networks: