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Caspar Fischer-Zernin

I was the COO and product owner of the SaaS company Pay with a Tweet (now Firal). For two years I saw and experienced what it means to be a developer, it is my dream to be one.

As a product owner I was part of a team that appreciated empathy, honesty and team work as their core principles. However, when it counted I was on the side line not able to assist them. It is no longer enough for me to be part of a team that I cannot actually contribute to.

By attending the dev. bootcamp Makers Academy I complemented my experience in problem solving and agile product development with the knowledge of writing code, and more importantly coding principles. With a good understanding and some experience in writing applications, frontend, backend (with decoupled APIs) and UI, I am now looking for a development team to continue on my journey to becoming a senior developer.

Skills:

MVP and User Stories

Pay with a Tweet:
Pre-launch:

Our MVP took 3 months to build. As a product owner I had to split features into small user stories that did not exceed 8 points. I also had to break down problems in order to draw up the mockups and prototypes. Especially the prototyping required a step by step imagination as well as creativity to avoid logic mistakes and redundant clicks.

Post-launch:

From a waterfall approach for MVP we moved to towards a continuous deployment system. This required me to change the way I had structured problems and solutions from “big picture” packages to small verticals.

Team work

In a start up team work is a key to success. Working long hours under high pressure for years only works if people communicate, are respectful and can give and accept feedback. Retrospectives and actionable steps especially I think are essential to good teamwork as the focus is on solutions rather than problems.

Independent learning

Teaching myself skills in a short period of time is one of my greatest strengths. As my degree in politics was neither technical nor included any business subjects, I had to learn all the skills that I have used in my career by myself. Skills I learned are of a wide range and include founding and running a SaaS company, running business intel. with SQL queries, creating prototypes and UX . I believe independent learning requires the following attributes: dedication, strive, the courage to jump into the deep end and to ask the right questions to the right resource -- google, stackoverflow, colleagues.

Running a start up:

  • Related to development
  • Communication is everything: Ask good questions!
  • Only build what you need and only find solutions to problems that you know actually exist. (Makers as well)
  • Code debt is real and its very expensive
  • Take ownership and responsibility
  • Business intelligence - Google Analytics/ Hotjar/ SQL
  • Agile workflow - SCRUM, Kanban, Trello, Waffle
  • Customer support - Freshdesk
  • Other areas of experience due to my role as COO
  • Social media marketing/SEO/SEA/ Rebranding
  • Data-driven Decision-making (following 'Running Lean' principles)
  • Accounting / Due Diligence / Business Development
  • IT Admin & HR
  • Sales - Pipedrive
Video:

"Pay with a Tweet"

Code Academy Skills:

  • TDD/OOD/Refactor/Sandi Metz

  • At Makers Academy you live and breath TDD, OOD and refactoring

  • RED GREEN are the only colors the world needs

  • Sandi Metz is your bible and extreme programming is your codex.

  • Refactor/Start over

  • For our final project, video at the bottom, we had to spike the design quite a bit at the end in order to have a functioning product. Once the presentation was completed I forked the repo and checked out a commit that preceded spiking. The code is now much leaner, stable and flexible.

Video:

"Capstone Project"

Education

Makers Academy (29/02/2016 to 21/06/2016)

  • OOP, TDD, SOLID, MVC, DDD, XP
  • Ruby, Rails, Javascript, Angular.js | (Sandi Metz best practice)
  • Rspec, Jasmine(Karma/Protractor)

University of Exeter (2007 – 2010)

  • BA International Relations
  • Grade: 2,1

Experience:

  • Pay with a Tweet (now Firal) (01/01/2014 to 31/12/2016)
  • COO
  • Hanse Ventures (01/06/2013 to 31/12/2014)
  • Entrepreneur in Residence
  • Pre-launch start up for convenience food (CookBox) (2012)
  • In orde to learn more about food trading, logistics etc. I completed a variety of internships and short term jobs
  • City portal: GANZ-Hamburg.de (2012)
  • Researcher
  • The American School in Switzerland(01/07/2010 to 01/07/2011)
  • Assistant to the Middle School Director
  • Middle School Dorm parent
  • Assistant Teacher (History/Politics Grades 9-12)

Languages:

  • English Fluent spoken and written
  • German Fluent spoken and written

Interests:

Science & Technology, Arduino/Rasberry, Cooking, Gaming(all platforms and board games), Skiing, Ultimate Frisbee, Photography, Reading, Freeletics

Contact Information:

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