Timm Jansen

Computer scientist • Full-stack web-developer & solutions architect • Cologne, Germany

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About

I consider myself a developer by nature, meaning that I always strive to solve problems in new - more efficient - ways.

Working roughly 15 years on the web building everything from small to large scale website I know how to deliver the best product in respect to available resources, time, quality and budget.

Work areas

  • Backend development
  • Data migration
  • System & Service architecture
  • Test automation
  • DevOps
  • Workshops & Consulting

Coding

Coding is a hard skill and I constantly try to improve. My current language of choice is JavaScript. I have been working for years with PHP and am not scared of BASH scripting. I've done my fair share of Java and C++ as well, but these days are over.

Node.js

JavaScript takes some time to sink in as it requires a change of mindset when having a PHP/Java background. Nowadays I highly appreciate the non-blocking nature of JavaScript and all the other amenities the Node.js ecosystem brings with it.

Drupal

I have been working with Drupal for the last 10 years and I basically grew up as a developer within the Drupal community. Widening my work focus to other areas (e.g. node.js) brings interesting opportunities with the latest features of Drupal 8.

Service architecture

I design scalable service architectures based on

  • ubuntu/debiandockernginx
  • mongodbmysqlredissolr
  • elkwebsockets

Amazon Web Services

Over the years I gathered deep inside knowledge about the AWS ecosystem. Especially with EC2, VPC, Docker, S3, Lambda, ELB, ES, IAM, KMS. Amazon Web Services is great to quickly build a scalable infrastructure, one has to be aware of the vendor lock-in though when using some of the services.

Frontend development

I have made myself familiar with Angular & React, but I prefer to leave frontend development to others in general. One exception are chrome extensions. When forced to pick a framework my current choice is Vue.js as it just does the things I need it do.

Open Source

Currently I'm not involved in any Open Source projects. My past projects:


User experience

Working on a single product for a couple of years I learned a lot about UX, what it's all about and - even more important - what it's not about. Designing a good user experience is a long process. Although it is not a major focus I try to learn more about UX whenever possible.

Testing

Keeping the quality up in a an agile project with short release cycles is hard. The only answer to this is automated testing. I help to analyze the current status and determine which tests bring the most value. End-to-end, integration tests or unit tests. Tools and frameworks I work with:

  • selenium / webdriver appium sauce labs
  • mochathe intern
  • phpunitbehatcodeception
  • wraithwebpagetestsitespeed

Build process automation

One would think the times of FTP deployments are over, but they still exist in one way or the other. Complicated manual deployment procedures don't just cost a lot of developer time, they also put a lot of stress on the whole team. Even when automating ALL the things isn't always possible nor desirable, modern tools allow to automate a big part of the build chain quiet easily. I help to set up or to optimize the automated build process. Tooling includes bash scripts, npm, yarn, gulp, grunt, jenkins, codeship, circle CI, travis.

Workshops

Interacting with people and sharing knowledge has always been important to me. Trainings and workshops are therefore the favourite part of my job. May it be an advanced training on Drupal, a workshop on testing or assessing the requirements of a system to be build. Trying to learn something from whoever I talk to helps me to more easily understand what someone else's use case is really about. One of the most interesting trainings I did so far was a two month stay in Myanmar, helping a team of ten web developers to improve their Drupal and overall development skills.

Clients & Projects

Vitra. • Burda Medien Park Verlage • CWS boco • Remington Deutschland • nexum AG • Salto.bz • Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg • Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig • DGB Bildungswerk • Dentales Diagnostikzentrum Breisgau • RWTH Aachen University – Data Management and Data Exploration group • Goethe University Frankfurt – Center for Financial Studies • University St. Gallen – Institute of Retail Management • Myanmar Information Management Unit • Kurru Kurru • Kamps Gruppe • CFP Brands • Mspiral (in Myanmar) • ChildTRAC (in Thailand)