Senior Software Developer & Systems Engineer

Over 20 Years of Professional IT Experience

I design and develop reliable software with a focus on Backend, IoT, and Mobile.

Based in Berlin and working remotely, I provide comprehensive support and consulting to companies throughout the entire lifecycle of their IT projects.

  • Planning: From initial problem analysis to solid conceptual design.
  • Implementation: Development and seamless deployment.
  • Future-proofing: Secure operation and continuous enhancement.

Deep expertise rooted in decades of practice: My interest in creating digital solutions began back in 1983 with a ZX81 (opens in a new tab) in the school library. Even during my studies, I offered IT and telecommunications-related services to small businesses and private individuals. Today, I design and implement software and IT systems predominantly in Java, Kotlin, Python, C#, and C, spanning from the cloud down to the embedded hardware level.

My services include:

  • Problem analysis, requirements gathering, and development of alternative solutions.
  • Design, implementation, and maintenance of software and IT systems.
  • Consulting and support in the development and operation of software and IT systems.
  • Project planning, project support, quality assurance, and evaluation.

My working approach and philosophy:

  • My goal is to deliver solutions that are sustainably usable and maintainable.
  • A dependable working approach, grounded in the following expectations of all project participants, provides the foundation for this:
    • Open exchange of information among all parties and collaboration on equal footing.
    • Clearly gathering, documenting, and prioritizing requirements and goals.
    • Planning implementations according to the requirements and continuously evaluating them.
    • Expecting problems as a natural part of projects, naming them openly, and addressing them in a solution-oriented manner.

Backend & Cloud Systems, Mobile

  • JVM Ecosystem: Experience with Java as my primary language since 1997 (Android, Spring, Spring Boot, OSGi). Kotlin was added later.
  • Cloud & Ecosystem: Experience with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and classic hosting (Hetzner, Strato, …).
  • Database Systems: Experience with relational and NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL/PostGIS, MySQL/MariaDB, SQLite, MongoDB, …).
  • Android & Cross-Platform: App development in Java and Kotlin for Android, as well as cross-platform development with Flutter/Dart.

IoT, Embedded & Geoinformation

  • Geoinformation (GIS): In-depth experience with location-based data, GIS software, and geospatial web services.
  • Transport Domain: Several years of software development and systems engineering for public transport and in research.
  • Embedded Software: Development for microcontrollers (Zephyr OS, STM32 HAL, …) and industrial PC hardware (Yocto, …).
  • Sensors & Wireless: Sensor data acquisition and low-power transmission via NB-IoT, Sigfox, and other wireless technologies.

DevOps, Systems Engineering & Operations

  • Administration: Whenever necessary for the development and operation of IT solutions, I take on the administration of Linux and Windows systems.
  • Automation & CI/CD: Experience with CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins), Ansible, Vagrant, …
  • Virtualization & Monitoring: Introduced monitoring with Icinga at DLR, worked with Nagios and the ELK stack. Virtualization tools like Docker, KVM, and VirtualBox are in my developer toolbox.

Selected Projects (2020 – 2025)

IoT Tracking System: Embedded Hardware & Azure Backend

Consulting on system architecture, design, and implementation of the cloud backend and embedded software for a B2B tracking service.

  • Consulting and collaboration on hardware specifications and requirement definitions.
  • Implementation of sensor data acquisition and energy-efficient transmission via SigFox and NB-IoT, along with subsequent backend processing.
  • Technologies: C# for the Azure backend, C for embedded systems (Zephyr OS and STM32 HAL), Python for data analysis.

Networked Mobile Display System

Maintenance and enhancement of a networked mobile display system based on industrial PCs and Raspberry Pi hardware.

  • Maintenance and enhancement of software components.
  • Technologies: Java and JavaFX, Yocto Linux, shell scripts, sensors and wireless modems, Google Cloud for backend and build processes.

MMO Game Backend (Goodgame Studios / Altigi GmbH(opens in a new tab))

Backend development and quality assurance for a large-scale, historically grown proprietary gaming platform.

  • Maintenance of existing software and implementation of new features.
  • Issue resolution: testing, trace research in Snowflake & logs, bug fixing.
  • Revamping build and security processes, particularly SBOM and credential management.
  • Cross-product standardization of modules.
  • Work on login systems and cheat prevention.
  • Collaboration with QA and coordination with other teams.
  • Management of issues in Jira and documentation in Confluence.
  • Technologies: Java, AWS, Jenkins, Snowflake.

Project Surec (GbR with Christoph Haufe (opens in a new tab))

Development of a solution for secure mobile data acquisition with verifiable timestamps and content.

  • Conception and implementation of the backend and mobile data persistence.
  • Technologies: Flutter/Dart for mobile app data storage, Spring Boot/Kotlin for the backend.

Contact

For project enquiries and further questions, you can reach me via the following platforms:

Legal Notice (Impressum)

The following legal notice is required under German law (§ 5 TMG) and is provided in German.

  • Angaben gemäß § 5 TMG:
    Richard Meinsen
    meinsen.net
    Schmidstraße 7
    10179 Berlin
  • Kontakt:
    Mobil: +49 163 1380590
    Telefon: +49 30 60056090
    E-Mail: info@meinsen.net
  • Umsatzsteuer-ID:
    Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer gemäß § 27a Umsatzsteuergesetz:
    DE 287 006 639
  • Angaben zur Berufshaftpflichtversicherung:
    Name und Sitz der Gesellschaft: Hiscox Europe Underwriting Limited
    Arnulfstraße 31
    80636 München
    Geltungsraum der Versicherung: Deutschland
  • Verantwortlich für den Inhalt nach § 55 Absatz 2 RStV:
    Richard Meinsen
    Schmidstraße 7
    10179 Berlin