From Rough Idea to Working Software
I work with founders and product teams to move from idea to working product through hands-on engineering, technical strategy, rapid prototyping, product thinking and engineering leadership.
I do my best work when the path is not obvious yet: early product ideas, AI-driven workflows, complex technical systems or ambitious “moon shots” that need to be explored before they can be planned.
Based in Berlin, working remotely.
How I Work
Many of the most interesting products do not begin with detailed specifications.
They start as:
- brittle ideas
- technical unknowns
- hypotheses and assumptions
- difficult constraints (cost, time, …)
- “this probably isn’t possible, but…”
I work closely with founders and product teams to explore these ideas quickly, reduce risk and build the path towards the working product.
This typically includes:
- technical feasibility exploration
- iterative, rapid prototyping
- AI and automation workflows
- technical product strategy
- software architecture
- infrastructure and scalability
- building an engineering organization
- helping early teams make better decisions
I enjoy working at the intersection of:
- engineering
- product design
- experimentation
- communication
- systems thinking
Over the last 30 years I have worked across startups, healthcare, logistics, e-commerce, enterprise systems and infrastructure-heavy products, both as a founder and as a hands-on developer and technical leader.
Projects I Enjoy
I am especially interested in:
- technically ambitious products
- early-stage product exploration
- projects where machine learning and AI can unlock new capabilities
- healthcare and systems with impact
- working in cross-functional teams
- building healthy engineering organizations
Selected Projects
mTOMADY
At mTOMADY we were building digital healthcare infrastructure that enables affordable access to healthcare in developing countries in sub-saharan Africa.
The platform connects patients, hospitals and healthcare sponsors while integrating secure payments and healthcare savings through mobile wallets.
Liefery
I joined Liefery early to help design and build a same-day logistics platform from scratch.
Over six years we evolved the system from early product exploration to a scalable logistics platform, built an engineering organization and supported the company through growth, profitability and acquisition.
Liefery provides ultra-fast same-day delivery for major retailers and e-commerce companies.
Papersmart
At Papersmart I worked as co-founder, CTO and hands-on developer building a custom e-commerce marketplace in Rails from scratch.
The platform included advanced pricing, product matching and order optimization features designed to improve purchasing efficiency and user experience.
BizSphere
At BizSphere AG I joined as co-founder and first engineer, helping turn an ambitious enterprise product idea into working software for global customers within a few months.
Alongside hands-on engineering I coordinated distributed teams across multiple time zones, worked directly with enterprise IT departments and built cloud-based deployment infrastructure.
Other Projects
Other freelance and consulting work includes:
- customer service systems for O2 Germany
- core banking systems for DiBa Austria
- mortgage consulting software for Sparkasse Germany
- custom internal enterprise software and infrastructure projects
- early AJAX-style web applications long before modern frontend frameworks existed
Passion Projects
Most of my work is for clients, but I also build and maintain my own products and open source tools. Here are a few examples:
Mac app
Glassboard
Annotate anything on your Mac, Khan Academy-style. A tool for frequent screensharers and content producers.
Mac app
Viewport
Share just a slice of your screen. For wide-screen and large-screen owners who don't want to overshare.
Open source
treehouse
Isolate dev environments when using git worktrees. Made for parallel agentic development.
Open source
mailsafe
A Ruby/Rails tool for safer email handling in development and staging environments.
What People Say
There were several traits of Simon that impressed me from the start and that I grew to rely on over the years. First of all, Simon has an immense competence in enterprise java, frameworks… short: he was the master of our entire software backend. As a colleague, I valued his reliability and willingness to help out and be a team player. Being very organized and proactive at the same time, he was a constant driver of improvement in our organization.
Not only did we trust fully in his reliability and integrity as a colleague and co-founder, but we also elected him into our supervisory board where he represented the founder team for many years.
Simon is a very driven and motivated professional. As project and requirements manager you could always count on him, swiftly solving issues, regularly communicating with the client and maintaining a good morale amongst his team members.
Writing & Links
You can read more about what I am working on on my blog.
You can also find me on:
Get In Touch
If you are exploring a technically ambitious product idea, trying to validate a new concept or looking for an experienced hands-on technical partner, feel free to email me.