Some Thoughts on the Principal Role

If you're a senior software engineer or data scientist, you might wonder what the next career step is. Some companies offer an "individual contributor" track, which is called principal, or staff, and that may seem like an attractive alternative to becoming a manager. I have worked in this role both at Zalando and now GetYourGuide, … Continue reading Some Thoughts on the Principal Role →

When Big Data became Scalable Databases

Cleaning up my bookshelf a bit, I came upon the book Mining of Massive Datasets by Jure Leskovec, Anand Rajaraman, and Jeff Ullman. It deals with all kinds of ways to deal with big data sets, data streams, link structures between documents, social network analysis, and other kinds of data which of occur in large amounts. There … Continue reading When Big Data became Scalable Databases →

Wardley Maps and the Democratization of AI

There is one book I've read in the past months that keeps coming back to me. Currently in the form of a series of Medium posts by Simon Wardley it is already a few hundred pages in length. Created as a means to map out the different parts of a company and to help developing … Continue reading Wardley Maps and the Democratization of AI →

Key AI Trends for 2020

I recently did a podcast with Ben Lorica for our new project The Data Exchange on key AI trends for 2020. I particularly happy to be part of this project so we continue to collaborate now that he has left O'Reilly and joined databricks. So I checked, and actually I met him for the first … Continue reading Key AI Trends for 2020 →

My 2019 Recap of Machine Learning From Academia To Industry

In a few days on August 1st, I will have completed my fourth year at Zalando. It is my first job out of university and I was fortunate enough to have their trust to make the switch from supervising a bunch of Ph.D. students to managing teams and leading people. Later, I switched to an … Continue reading My 2019 Recap of Machine Learning From Academia To Industry →

Me On A Stage

I occasionally give talks. Not more than a few times per year. Okay, sometimes it is three talks within four working days, but that only happens if I don't keep an eye on the scheduling. Which I don't do surprisingly often. People are kind enough to host me. Maybe I should take all my talks … Continue reading Me On A Stage →

Love Being A Lead: Valentine‘s Edition

Love being a lead boils down to "Everything you do is about helping those whom you lead do their work."

The Levels of Doing AI

When it comes to new technologies like Artificial Intelligence, the pure technology is only a small aspect required to putting it to use. Still, given the hype that exists currently, one can easily loose sight of the big picture as announcements of new algorithms, toolboxes, or cloud services fight for grabbing our attention as the … Continue reading The Levels of Doing AI →

But is it AI?

One discussion I find myself in more often recently is people asking me whether something is "really AI" or not. Often, what people seem to mean with that is whether someone is already using deep learning, or still "just" machine learning. I mentioned this to a friend in the industry and he just rolled his … Continue reading But is it AI? →

Love Being A Lead

Once upon a time, Paul Adams and I were standing next to our teams' desks, discussing something as we noticed a helicopter hovering over nearby buildings. Easily distracted as I am, we started to observe it and wondering where it was going. The chopper slowly drifted to the side and it seemed as if it … Continue reading Love Being A Lead →