Vienna, Vienna, Austria
I am a Senior Engineering Leader who believes that technical excellence is built on a foundation of trust, ownership, and clear communication. Over the past decade, I’ve helped evolve Austria's premier fintech from a regional provider into a global player that now processes $5B+ annually across 175M+ transactions. My career is defined by taking on high-stakes challenges where technical precision meets massive scale: • Global Platform Partnerships (Sony, Google, Activision Blizzard): I architect and ship mission-critical, highly regulated payment integrations for the world’s largest digital ecosystems. This includes launching a frictionless checkout solution for the Sony PlayStation Network supporting over 290 million consoles across three generations (PS3, PS4, PS5). I also orchestrated a global integration with Google across 50 international markets, successfully launching our products on the Play Store. I partnered with Activision Blizzard to engineer a novel, next-gen payment prototype for the Battle.net ecosystem, focusing on maximizing integration seamlessness. • Fintech Evolution at Scale: I led the engineering of products growing to $5B+ in annual volume, ensuring 24/7 uptime during unpredictable traffic spikes. My work involved integrating SEPA-enabled accounts and Mastercard issuance for a global customer base, maintaining a rock-solid infrastructure for 650,000+ points of sale. • Team Turnarounds & Leadership: I specialize in stabilizing and scaling high-growth teams. I’ve led up to three cross-functional teams (15+ developers) simultaneously, stepping into struggling environments to establish clear engineering standards and a culture of radical ownership. I am a dedicated mentor, coaching developers into senior roles and driving hiring for top-tier talent. • Efficiency via Agentic AI: I am currently at the forefront of Agentic AI adoption, introducing autonomous agents via AWS Bedrock and Cursor to parallelize workflows. From architecting AI-driven localization pipelines to integrating LLMs into the dev workflow, I focus on using technology to slash release cycles and maximize engineering velocity. I thrive at the intersection of creative expression and technical precision. Whether I’m designing resilient microservices or mentoring the next generation of engineers, my goal is always the same: building world-class tech that people actually trust.
• Multi-Team Leadership: Led up to three cross-functional teams simultaneously, overseeing 15 developers. I stepped up to support struggling teams by establishing clear engineering standards and a culture of trust and ownership. • Applied AI & Engineering Efficiency: Introduced AI and LLM-based tools into the development workflow, reducing manual effort and shortening release cycles for global product deployments. • Leadership Excellence: Nominated for the "Leadership Boost" program and acted as the primary hiring manager to recruit top talent, while personally coaching my developers into senior roles. Key projects: • Peer-to-Peer Payment Engine: Led the engineering of a secure and scalable Peer-to-Peer payment application, while maintaining real-time anti-money laundering compliance. • AI-Driven Localization: Architected an automated pipeline using DeepL AI that replaced manual UI text translations, accelerating our international product launches. • Agentic AI Adoption: Currently introducing AI agents via AWS Bedrock AgentCore and Cursor to parallelize workflows, increase velocity and optimize requirements engineering.
• High-Growth Leadership: Selected for the "Frontrunner" high-potential leadership program to manage a team of 7 engineers, shifting focus to scaling teams and mentoring people while balancing delivery velocity with stability. • Volume at Scale: Architected products growing to $5+ billion annual transaction volume and 175+ million payment transactions per year, ensuring system uptime and performance during unpredictable traffic spikes. • Strategic Execution: Optimized CI/CD pipelines and engineering workflows to speed up project timelines and increase deployment frequency. Key projects: • Centralized customer authentication: Built a centralized authentication platform for 13+ million customers, standardizing onboarding and PSD2/GDPR compliance. • Account & Card: Led the integration of SEPA-enabled accounts and Mastercard debit issuance, bridging the gap between our digital wallet and traditional banking rails. • Google Play Store: Orchestrated a strategic engineering partnership with Google to launch paysafecard as a payment method across 50 international markets. • PlayStation Network Integration: Built and shipped the global payment solution for the PlayStation Store, enabling frictionless purchases for a massive player base across three generations of hardware, totaling over 290 million devices.
• Global Infrastructure Engineering: Joined during a company scaleup phase to develop the core payment platform required to transition from a regional provider to a global fintech player. • High-Concurrency Systems: Engineered resilient services supporting 650,000+ points of sale and the seamless integration of 3,500+ merchants. • Architecture Evolution: Optimized complex transaction logic and evolved the architecture to maintain high performance under increasing technical pressure and global scale. • Technical Leadership: I grew from a software engineer into a technical lead by taking ownership of our software design, architecture and mentoring the next generation of engineers. Key projects: • Payment Panel: Engineered the core payment gateway, enabling high-volume transactions for the global gaming and gambling ecosystem. • MyPaysafecard (Digital Wallet): Developed the account and wallet infrastructure, supporting Mastercard integrations and self-service features for millions of users. • Next-Gen Prototyping: Partnered with Activision Blizzard to engineer a novel, next-gen payment proof-of-concept for the Battle.net ecosystem, focusing on seamless integration to eliminate onboarding friction.
Following my graduation from TU Vienna, I joined Digital River Online Games, where I developed micro-payment applications for global market leaders including Riot Games (League of Legends), Nintendo/Pokémon Company, Mattel, and THQ (Company of Heroes). Supporting novel virtual economies gave me early experience in high-volume digital commerce and provided the technical foundation for my later shift to fintech and global payment platforms.