I’m an experienced front-end developer and lead developer for cross-functional Scrum/Kanban teams. I’ve recently transitioned to engineering management, trying to make everyone on my team an even better developer than myself.

I love to share my knowledge and experience, by means of my personal blog, talks and workshops, open-source projects, or as a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria.

I’m also a versatile digital artist, creating content for real-time applications, film and animation. Since secondary school I’ve developed many games with my friends.

You can contact me via GitHub, Twitter or [email protected]. I’m available for speaking and workshops, talking about web design and development, game asset creation and challenges we’ve faced at karriere.at.

Third-Person Biography™

Manuel is Head of Front-End Development at karriere.at, lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria and writes about Front-End Development, Games und Digital Art on his personal blog manu.ninja.

Work Experience

since 2019-07

Head of Front-End Development

karriere.at GmbH, Linz

Leadership of 13 front-end/full-stack developers, distributed across 5 cross-functional Scrum/Kanban teams. Responsible for the extensibility/scalability and quality of front-end development at karriere.at, including people (recruiting, mentoring, coaching, sponsoring, …), process and technology.

since 2018-03

Lecturer

University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg

Teaching “Hypermedia User Experience Engineering” in the “Interactive Media” program. Topics include JavaScript, front-end frameworks (mainly Vue.js), tooling (webpack, Parcel, …), Progressive Web Apps, client/server communication (REST APIs, WebSockets, NoSQL, …), GraphQL, unit testing, end-to-end testing, RxJS, WebGL and other front-end development matters.

2017-11 – 2019-06

Lead Web Developer

karriere.at GmbH, Linz

Technical leadership of a cross-functional Scrum/Kanban team. Responsible for code quality (security, performance, extensibility/scalability …), software architecture, stakeholder communication, technical concepts and technology evaluation, training and mentoring of fellow developers. Assistance in recruiting, onboarding and employer branding topics (open-source projects and developer blog; external talks, trainings and workshops …).

2014-06 – 2017-10

Senior Front-End Developer

karriere.at GmbH, Linz

Development of a heavily search engine optimized component-based microframework – inspired by AngularJS, Ember.js, React and Vue.js; built with webpack, Babel/ES2015+, Sass (BEM) and SVGs – for the karriere.at platform, rendering Handlebars views in Laravel and hydrating the application on the client. Development, maintenance and migration of multiple (legacy) front-end projects using different technology stacks (Zend Framework, WordPress, AMD/curl.js, Grunt, …).

2017-02 – 2017-09

Lecturer

University of Applied Sciences Kufstein, Tirol

Supervision of a master’s thesis in the “Web Communication & Information Systems” program.

2012-10 – 2014-05

Front-End Developer

bet-at-home.com Entertainment GmbH, Linz

Development of a modular HTML/CSS architecture using SMACSS for the relaunch of bet-at-home.com. Development of animated/interactive HTML5 ads to migrate away from Adobe Flash, with browser support for every major desktop browser including Internet Explorer 6. Interaction design and development of a modular HTML/CSS architecture using BEM for the bet-at-home.com/mobile platform for smartphone browsers.

2009-10 – 2012-06

Tutor

University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg

2011-07 – 2012-04

CG & VFX Generalist

MEDIASQUAD Medienentwicklungs- und Vertriebs-GmbH, Brixlegg

2010-03 – 2010-06

2D/3D Artist

APEX Gaming Technology GmbH, Hagenberg

2009-07 – 2009-08

CG & VFX Generalist

Friendly Fire Communications GmbH, Vienna

2008-12 – 2009-01

2D/3D Artist

VRVis Zentrum für Virtual Reality und Visualisierung Forschungs-GmbH, Vienna

Education

2010-10 – 2012-10

University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg

Digital Arts

Master of Arts in Arts and Design – magna cum laude
Master’s thesis on “Spatial orientation and navigation in three-dimensional game environments using diegetic and immersive interfaces”.

2007-10 – 2010-07

University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg

Media Technology and Design

Bachelor of Science in Engineering – cum laude
Bachelor’s thesis on “Transhumanistic character design in Japanese animation at the beginning of the 21st century”.

2002-09 – 2007-06

HTL Anichstraße, Innsbruck

Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen, Betriebsinformatik

Reifeprüfung – cum laude
Diploma thesis on “Economy simulation as real-time strategy game with artificial intelligence”.