CURRENT POSITION AND WHAT I DO
As one of the two lead architects at iptiQ (by SwissRE) I am responsible for the overall architecture and architectural patterns and best practices used in all products and by all teams of the company. I am working closely with the CTO and am consulting him in all technical matters.
I am guiding the many teams of developers through the journey of converting the product from it original state of being a highly distributed monolith to a modern architecture based on the principles of SOA or Self Contained Systems (SCS)
I am a very hands on architect and support all teams and each developer with specific know how by training and mentoring them, by leading workshops or brown bag sessions to specific areas of the software development life cycle. I also consult management and customers in matters of software architecture and author guidelines, processes, manifest and checklists.
I am leading the automation of the formerly manual regression test suite in quality engineering and the adoption of feature toggles in product engineering, which are two main pillars f continuous delivery. I am guiding DevOps and the cloud team in the definition and implementation of the CI/CD pipeline and infrastructure as code (IaC).
Last but not least I am responsible for the technical on-boarding of new joiners.
Prior to joining iptiQ Gabriel served as a lead solutions architect at Maison du Software, and before that, as the Lead Curriculum Developer at Confluent and as Principal Curriculum Developer at Docker Inc.
PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Gabriel is:
- working closely with and consulting the CTO
- responsible or the overall architecture of the cloud native SaaS solution of the company
- overseeing the migration of a highly distributed monolith to an event driven architecture with self containing systems (SCS).
- leading QA automation engineers in automating a comprehensive suit of manual regression tests
- providing training to developers, DevOps and QA automation engineers
- mentoring and coaching engineers
- documenting important aspects of the software development life cycle, including high level architecture, component level architecture, architectural patterns, principles and best practices of SW development, test types and how to test.
- lead the migration of a highly distributed monolith to an event driven architecture with self containing systems (SCS) in the backend and a reactive UI based on Angular and using SignalR.
- demonstrated and lead the containerisation of all components of the various products of the company
- actively engaging in the buildup of fully automated DevOps pipelines for all products
- laying the ground work and contributing significantly to the coverage of most critical code with fully automated unit, integration and end-to-end tests.
- single-handedly created multiple instructor lead training courses from scratch, for areas that included hot new industry trends, and for which very limited documentation and experience existed at that time. Courses were designed as workshops, each including a large amount of comprehensive hands-on labs for the students.
- as an expert in highly distributed, scalable and mission critical application architecture, he has lead the design and implementation of several such mission critical projects in different sectors of the industry, namely manufacturing, pharmaceutical industry and financial services.
- successfully trained more than a thousand professionals from all backgrounds and industries in software development, DevOps and operations, starting from beginner level to expert level.
WHAT ARE MY VALUES
Gabriel is passionate about sharing knowledge and fostering the individual growth of engineers, co-workers and sub-ordinates. He strongly believes in team work and as such he is doing his best to nurture a cohesive team where everyone pulls on the same side of the rope.
Gabriel has always been a curious mind that is not satisfied with superficial answers to meaningful questions. His education as a physicist helped him to develop great skills to solve even the most complex problems thrown at him, be it technical or not.
After his PhD Gabriel started his career as an independent consultant and trainer in IT. He was fortunate to be able to help many big companies to implement solution for mission critical areas. Later on as an employee for various US software and consulting companies Gabriel sharpened his skillset and took various positions as software architect,
senior architect, distinguished architect and even chief software architect. Gabriel naturally evolved into these positions due to his constant push for doing better and providing solutions for even the most challenging problems.
On the soft skill side Gabriel is told by his current and former coworkers that he expresses great empathy and that he provides never ending and pro-active support for them. Gabriel is a leader yet wants to always lead by example and be a good role model.
WHO AM I OUTSIDE OF WORK?
Gabriel is happily married and lives with his wife and children in a beautiful house in Appenzell, Switzerland, with a most exceptional view. He loves spending time with his family, he is a passionate hobby chef, loves hiking in the mountains, and walking over the hills. He is avidly following the newest discoveries in astronomy and cosmology and the newest hot trends in IT. Gabriel loves to read books and articles about history, art, philosophy and neuro science, to just name a few non-technical areas of interest. He is the author of 4 books and 2 video series and numerous blog posts and articles.
ON A SIDE NOTE
Gabriel’s PhD was about measuring far infrared radiation of newborn stars. To measure in this wavelength his team flew a stratospheric balloon borne telescope at an altitude of 40 kilometer. He considers himself fortunate to lead such expeditions twice and collaborate with some most exceptional engineers. One of them later became a Formula 1 engineer, another one a pilot and yet another one is tenured professor of astrophysics. These balloon flights were always very nerve wrecking since once the balloon had launched, nothing could be done anymore to fix some unforeseen bugs or defects. Planning carefully and testing, testing, testing before launch was key for success!
For a detailed list of my skills please visit https://gabrielschenker.com/index.php/skills/