The journey
This isn't a resume. You can find one of those on LinkedIn.
This is the story of how I ended up doing what I do. Told through the moments where something broke, or opened, and I had to look up.
Beiersdorf · 2004–2010
The physical layer
I started in a data center. Racking servers, labeling cables, keeping the OS patched and the hardware healthy. HP Proliant 6xx monsters with eight network ports each [I dreaded the cabling].
My first real project was building out the virtual data center. VMware had just moved from GSX to ESX and we had a test balloon. I took it on and built what we'd now call an on-premise cloud [but that wasn't a thing yet].
I was good at it. I was also 20 years old and convinced that everyone around me was too slow. I relied on no one because, in my eyes, no one was reliable.
The ceiling came from a conversation with my department head. He told me that as long as I stayed, I would always be seen as the apprentice, never as a full colleague. If I wanted change, I'd need to leave.
Mindfactory · 2010
The first fall
A CEO I knew from my eSport connections offered me 40% more than I was making. I was 25 and suddenly in charge of an IT department. Four people. My own show.
My arrogance was through the roof. My confidence in my skills was unshakable [at least, so I thought].
The environment was toxic in ways I didn't have the vocabulary for yet. The CEO threw a PC tower out of a window because a sales guy made a bad purchase. The Labor Agency had blacklisted the warehouse for turnover. I tried to build something resembling culture with my team [small things, like Mettbrötchen on Fridays] but the mistrust was deep-seated.
I didn't last the probation period. On my last day, I resigned with physical stomach pain from going to work every morning.
This experience shattered me. I moved back in with my parents and reported myself unemployed. I had no idea what happened [only that I had failed]. The lessons took years to form: I had no business leading people, because I had no idea what that actually meant. And going for the money is a dangerous, stupid game. After that, nearly every job switch was a pay cut.
tesa · 2010–2017
Process archaeology
The tesa team had liked me during a project at Beiersdorf. When they heard I was back in Hamburg, they called. Within two weeks, I had a desk.
My job was to take over the applications and systems that project managers had built but had no one to hand off to. They were stuck running their own output [eating up resources they needed for new projects]. I took that off their desks.
Most of it was straightforward as long as the project manager who built it was still around. The real archaeology was the forgotten tools, the ones where context had eroded and no one quite remembered what they did or why.
I used an Indiana Jones reference in an all-hands presentation once to explain my work. Personally, I was taking things slow, rebuilding confidence from dust.
The team around me grew. I was never the team lead [officially I was the senior system engineer] but I was the one everyone came to. That became expected.
Part of my role became advising on projects so that fewer decisions would blow up later. But what I actually wanted was to be where the decisions were made. I was tired of cleaning up problems I had nothing to do with.
I never got there. Five consecutive performance reviews said the same thing: not management material. Too direct. Not political enough. Not easy to lead.
So I embraced it. When the company needed something done, they sent me. I became the flaming sword of the IT Operations Manager. I didn't hold hands. I was there because others had failed, and I was there to fix it.
My confidence was back. But this time I had become bitter.
I burned out. Six weeks off. When I came back, I built a warning system [including asking my Padawan to pull me aside when he saw me spiraling]. A voluntary 360 feedback came back with the word "inhumane." Not because of cruelty. Because my work had no visible cracks, and that scared people.
In early 2017, I told my parents: if I feel the same in a week, I'm resigning. A week later, I did.
2017
The break
My resignation got overshadowed exactly one week later. A ransomware attack wiped out the entire Beiersdorf data center [3,000 servers, all clients, everything]. My former server team asked my Operations Manager if they could borrow me to support the recovery.
I spent the next month running 14-hour shifts, rebuilding from scratch. I had the time of my life. I was happy. The work was meaningful, I had no skin in the game, and I was no longer bound by any rules. I had already resigned. Nobody could touch me.
When the recovery wound down, a friend in Dubai said: pack your bags, crash on my couch, we'll find you a job.
I sold everything I owned and left Germany.
Almosafer · 2017–2023
Climbing the stack
I had no idea what a Technical Product Manager was when the job was offered. I'd never heard the term "API." My onboarding was done by an intern, and the office chairs broke on the unfinished floor.
I loved it.
Three weeks in, my boss handed me a project [VAT implementation across UAE and KSA] while he went on vacation. Speaking of the deep end of the pool holding a radiator.
That project got me the deepest understanding of the system anyone could have. I needed to understand everything that might touch VAT: prices, fees, invoices, every team in the company. I was the first person with a product title who actually sat down with the finance team and got their input. Until then they'd been an afterthought [someone who only found out about system changes because their process broke]. We were fully compliant within three days of the official start. Other companies in the region took five more months.
Ronnie [my boss] had a pattern. He'd go on vacation, read a book, and come back with ideas. When he gave me INSPIRED by Marty Cagan, it became a guiding light. My job became: read the same book, then figure out how to actually do it.
We started building evidence after hours [running customer research on our own time to influence decisions with data] because during the day we did what we were told. The results were hard to ignore.
This led to Marty Cagan's team running a workshop for us. Then Teresa Torres training our teams in Continuous Discovery. The way we worked had fundamentally changed. The company survived the pandemic because of it [our big war chest didn't hurt either]. One of the ideas we surfaced became a new product entirely. That's the case study in both books.
Other PMs and engineers started coming to me for advice. Ronnie noticed I was having coffee with someone different every day and started introducing me as "the local Product Therapist." Those sit-downs became known as "Coffee with Chris."
That became my Product Operations role. No direct reports [Well, one but he was awesome]. The organisation became my product.
2023–present
Independence
I left on a high. The work we'd built was being undermined by new money and shifting priorities. I could see it happening but couldn't stomach watching it get torn down. I missed my parents. And I had enough in the bank to take my time.
I traveled for four months. Then I found a coaching program that formalized what I'd been doing informally. I completed it with multiple certifications [iPEC, for those who track these things]. It never really fitted me.
Since then, I've been finding my next shape. I built a greenhouse where I'm the one who grows. The coaching taught me things I needed to learn [mostly about myself]. But people never came to me for coaching. They came because something was stuck and they needed someone who gets in the work, not someone who watches from outside.
That part hasn't changed since the data centers. I untangle complex systems and make the friction visible so people can act on it. I just do it independently now.