Winfried Puchinger

Software Development Engineer and Manager

Summary

I am currently working as a software engineering manager for Refinio GmbH, a small startup that creates innovative applications to empower everyone to use the full potential of the internet without compromising their privacy.

Previously, I worked at Amazon.com for twelve years. There I designed and built software systems written in Perl, C++ and Java and owned their maintenance, scaling and day-to-day operation. I led international teams, oversaw time-critical organization-wide migration projects, owned a big server fleet and taught in-house programming classes.

For the past 25+ years I have also been running non-profit websites that provide legal information for prison inmates and their relatives. This is where I experiment with new technologies.

Work Experience

2017+ – Refinio GmbH | Nürnberg, Germany

Software Engineering Manager

• Led the development of a multi-platform (web, mobile, desktop, server), local-first data framework in TypeScript to store, distribute, consolidate, query, sign and verify data
• Coordinated the design, development, deployment and support of privacy-preserving messaging, health-care and edutainment apps for external customers based on our framework
• Developed a schema and data editor in React to make the data framework easily configurable by product teams
• Created demo apps in React Native to showcase the capabilities of the data framework and its sensor integration on mobile apps
• Setup our company’s cloud infrastructure and CI/CD pipeline; hired and mentored DevOps to maintain, scale and improve it
• Designed certificate based chain of trust and ledger schema to prevent double spending in a coupon system
• Established a transparent process to balance business objectives for specific projects with the need for ongoing technical enhancements to the underlying platform

Tools: TypeScript, Node.js, React, React Native, AWS, Github Actions, Scrum

Team: 1 technical program manager, 1 content editor, 1 UX designer, 2 software architects and up to 7 developers in Bulgaria, Germany and Romania

2003-2011 – Amazon.com | Munich, Germany

Software Engineering Manager

• Led a task force of 12 to migrate catalog software of all Amazon locales from company-wide to team-owned infrastructure by disentangling dependencies accumulated over 20+ years
• Owned resulting fleet of 200+ Linux servers with a yearly hardware budget of $4 million
• Coordinated the upgrade of all retail catalog software from 32bit to 64bit architecture
• Designed, developed and operated a fault-tolerant distributed system in Java and Perl to retrieve, process and reconcile catalog data feeds from 400+ different data providers
• Created self-service UIs in Perl and JavaScript to allow business users to configure new catalog feeds, monitor feed processing progress and visualize feed metrics
• Built a framework in Perl as the basis for publishing retail catalog changes in real-time instead of gigantic daily batches
• Implemented the catalog team’s first REST Service in C++ as part of a company-wide move to a service-oriented architecture
• Owned daily operation and QA of legacy catalog builds for all Amazon locales; eliminated on-call overtime by training local support teams in different time zones
• Introduced agile methodologies and unit tests to Amazon.eu after learning about Extreme Programming during a visit in the US

Tools: Perl, C++, Java, MySQL, Oracle, Apache, Extreme Programming, Scrum

Team: 1 team lead, 1 senior DBA, 1 systems architect and up to 7 developers in the UK, Japan and the US

1999-2003 – Amazon.de | Munich, Germany

Software Development Manager

• Created, maintained and operated a highly configurable web-based project management and reporting system in Perl used by Amazon teams around the globe
• Hired, expanded and led product categorization (browse) team; increased categorization coverage by automating categorization and providing easy-to-use UIs for product teams
• Enabled the Amazon.de marketing team to be the first team within Amazon to establish a partner program by tracking customer activity across website visits
• Created vacation booking and overtime tracking systems for the Amazon.de HR team
• Conducted Linux and programming classes for web developers and operations teams

Projects

2023+ – knast.world

Features: CMS, forum, chat, wiki, questions & answers, law database and prison ratings.

Tools: Rust (nom, sqlx, serde, tokio, tracing), Golang, TypeScript (DOM, IndexedDB), WASM, PostgreSQL, AWS (CloudFront, Lambda, RDS, S3, SES), Docker

2018+ – stvollzg.de

Features: Website to compare the different prison laws of the 16 German states.

Tools: Python (Flask, spaCy), ClojureScript (re-frame)

2016+ – audac.net

Features: Interactive learning platform.

Tools: Haskell (Servant), ClojureScript (re-frame), PostgreSQL

2012+ – eohwi.net

Features: Vocabulary trainer optimized for the Korean language, flash cards using spaced repetition to improve memorization, 5000+ most frequent words, most frequent Chinese characters and homonyms.

Tools: Golang, Ruby (Rails), TypeScript (jQuery, RxJS), PostgreSQL

1995-2018 – knast.net

Features: CMS, law database, blog, chat, private messages, mailing list, forum, prison ratings

Tools: C++ (STL, POCO), Perl (PSGI/Plack), Golang, JavaScript (jQuery, RxJS), PostgreSQL, ZeroMQ, Redis, Elasticsearch

Education

Seoul National University | Seoul, Republic of Korea

2011-2012 – Korean Language

Julius-Maximilians-Universität | Würzburg, Germany

1995-1998 – Biology, Chemistry and Roman Catholic Theology – Staatsexamen
1989-1995 – Biology – Diplom

Bernhard-Strigel-Gymnasium | Memmingen, Germany

1979-1988 – Abitur