Updating my bio

I haven’t updated my bio on the About page in over five years. For the record, here is my profile as of the 4th of April 2026:

My name is Thomas and I am a fullstack software developer in Dortmund, Germany, with a focus on Java, Kotlin and Spring Boot application development. I’m often on tech meetups in Dortmund and the Ruhr area. On this blog, I write about programming and software development topics.

This is my personal blog. Views expressed here are entirely my own and not related to my current employer. If you want to yell at someone, yell at me!

Parts of that bio are still true, of course. I still live in Dortmund and the opinions expressed in this blog do not reflect the opinions of my current employer.

However, there are other parts that changed and I’d like to address why they did. At the same time, I want to keep the bio itself short. So this post is basically a lengthier version of it, with more details on what I’m up to these days and my current points of view. I suspect that in the coming years, there might be multiple of these posts that update the bio. It should be fun to see how my views have changes over time and on what topics my opinion has shifted.

I’ll start with my current job role and what I focus on, shift towards the part-job/part-freetime topic of meetups and discuss this blog at the end.

The role

The role description “fullstack software developer” is not incorrect. We do not have formal titles at my current employer and it did describe my work when I started this blog pretty well, but describes my current work too simple, too “code monkey”, too “You give requirement, I give code”. Being a consultant and having worked with many teams, I have met lots of developers who think in this way. I don’t think this attitude is going to do them any favors in the coming years, given the rise of AI development tools. Today, the knowledge of “turning requirements into syntax” is not what businesses need. Rather, the question of what to build and how to build it becomes more pressing than it did previously.

Even before AI became a thing, I wanted to find ways to solve the business need in the best way possible, no matter what the best solution looked like. It doesn’t matter if “the best” is a CRUD app with a Java backend, an Excel Plugin, an Alexa Skill or just plain paper cards. I think AI can help us go crazy during the exploration of the solution space since it let’s us investigate solutions that we previously dropped due to lack of knowledge or familiarity.

At the same time, we need to know how the business will grow, what goals it has and how the solution should integrate in the overall context. As exciting as “going crazy” sounds, we need to keep a realistic eye on long-term strategy and needs of the business. This requires us to question our own assumptions (and certainly the outputs of AI).

So, what is a good description for my current role? I think Tech Lead or Solution Architect feels more in line with my current work and the work I want to do in the future.

The focus

Continuing on the previous thoughts, I don’t think the part “with a focus on Java, Kotlin and Spring Boot application development” is interesting these days, nor is it correct anymore. For the last 5 years I worked primarily with TypeScript; in the frontend with React and Vue.js, in the backend with Node.js and AWS Lambda, and in IaC with AWS CDK. This doesn’t mean I identify as a TypeScript developer now. I want to move away from identifying myself with a technology; like a guy with a hammer who thinks everything is a nail. Instead of introducing myself as a “Java dev” or “AWS-certified architect”, I want to focus on what I can bring to the table from a business perspective.

There are also things I haven’t had the chance to work with in a professional setting, notably Go, Rust and Swift. Again, having AI assistants these days lowers the bar of entry and enable more dev teams to use more efficient languages and platform-native frameworks.

It might be rooted in my career start as a backend developer, but I’m not the type of person who enjoys building yet another shiny looking app that just satisfies a visual itch, especially if these don’t really make a difference for the users. I want to focus on building maintainable solutions that provide long-term value.

Apart from the technical, I want to bring a more focussed way of working to teams, in the lines of Cal Newport’s Deep Work. Too many teams I have seen are stuck in hamster wheel organizations with so many meetings that nothing gets done. I think this is often rooted in cargo cult (the ultimate enemy in tech if you ask me), and enabling teams to avoid this wasteful way of working is what I hope to spend bigger chunks of my time on, now that AI takes over more of the code-writing.

The common denominator of these things is efficiency. Now, that’s not much of a distinguishing factor (what dev prides himself with enjoying inefficiency?), so it might not be the best choice from a self-marketing perspective to put it into my bio. But I’m not looking for a new job right now, and it is at least honest.

The meetups

My bio mentions briefly that I enjoy visiting meetups in Dortmund and surrounding cities. For quite some time now, I’m also co-hosting my company’s meetup called tech&talk in our Dortmund office. It has been a really fulfilling experience to not only come into contact with speakers from all over Germany and listening to their wide range of topics, I’m also delighted to meet such a diversity of guest.

In my free time, I’m also participating in the organization of the Java User Group Dortmund which is four times a year.

The blog

This is a personal blog, but in the bio I already have narrowed down the topic to programming and software development. I found myself not writing as often because I thought a topic wasn’t fitting with the rest of the content, so I ditched the idea. But why shouldn’t I write about other stuff as well? There are many topics that I would like to write about, not necessarily for anyone to read (you’re welcome if you enjoy it!), but for me to order my thoughts on a topic. This could be anything, from factory-building games to sustainable technology, from Star Trek to interior architecture etc.

The updated bio.

So here it is, my updated bio as of July 24, 2026, which took longer than I anticipated to write:

My name is Thomas and I am a Tech Lead and Solution Architect in Dortmund, Germany, with a focus on long-term maintainable software and efficient work. I enjoy finding and building the best solutions for interesting problems, with no boilerplate or slop, and fighting cargo-cult whereever I can. I co-host the codecentric tech&talk Meetup in Dortmund and support the Java User Group Dortmund. On this blog, I write about all sorts of topics, from programming to minmalistic interior design, from Star Trek to factory games.

This is my personal blog. Views expressed here are entirely my own and not related to my current employer. If you want to yell at someone, yell at me!

Thomas Buss blog