It started when I was about 13 years old. I spent a lot of time playing computer games. At that time I was playing the games Fallout 3 & Fallout Vegas. I discovered that you can create your own game content for both games using the manufacturer's special software. Among other things, you could program scripts for the game in a scripting language and that's how my interest in programming started. I started with programming little modifications for these games.

Later I got more involved with programming and also looked at other programming languages. I used batch programming on Windows to automate processes on my computer. Via Excel and VBA I came to Visual Basic .NET, which I mainly used to develop small programs for myself.

At my school at the time, you could choose computer science as an examination subject in high school, which I did. During this time we dealt with many basics, such as databases, automaton theory or IT security. But we also looked at the programming in detail. We worked there with Python and learned the principle of object oriented programming.

Even before graduating from high school, it was clear to me that I wanted to work in software development later on. The University was out of the question for me. I'm more practical and didn't feel like doing theory during my studies, so I applied to several companies for an apprenticeship as an IT specialist for application development (German: "Fachinformatiker"). I was quickly accepted by an IT service provider in the neighboring town.

I started my apprenticeship with this IT service provider after passing my high-school diploma (German: "Abitur"). At the beginning I learned the basic concepts of programming again, this time in the programming language Java. There were also web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. At that time, in the department where I was, we were implementing E-Commerce systems based on the SAP frameworks: SAP Eco, SAP WCEM and SAP Commerce (then named SAP Hybris).

After my basic training, which lasted about 1 year, I was able to take on my first tasks in customer projects. That's how I got into the day-to-day project business and gained my first project experience. After a total of 3 years I had successfully completed my apprenticeship and I was taken on by the company as a permanent employee. At that time, I was already involved in several customer projects.

After a year in the company that had trained me, I resigned to join another company in the same town. Some of my old colleagues also joined this company.

There we were again in the SAP Commerce environment. I was again working in several existing projects. During this time I dealt a lot with the SAP Commerce Framework. I delved even deeper into programming and gained a lot of experience in the various projects.

During this time I was significantly involved in several upgrades of SAP Commerce systems. (Anyone who works in the SAP Commerce environment knows how difficult this is. Especially when large version jumps are made).

After two years of working in existing projects, I got the chance to start a new customer project from the beginning as a lead developer. At this point I was already a senior engineer with a lot of experience in the SAP Commerce environment.