Career Profile
Since 2011, I have gained extensive experience in developing and maintaining scalable software solutions, complemented by in-depth computer science studies at the University of Salzburg. Alongside my programming work, I teach Java as a guest lecturer, a role that grew from my earlier work as academic tutor and teaching assistant, where I helped students master complex programming concepts and formal systems. This blend of practical expertise and academic teaching enables me to effectively bridge theory and application, achieving both lasting educational impact and technical innovation.
Professional Experiences
- Deliver weekly seminars (3h, Wednesday) on programming in Java.
- Maintenance of automated assignment system.
- Create/grade tests and assignments with constructive feedback.
- Represented the faculty at nationwide student fairs and outreach events, consistently ranking among the top presenters based on student feedback.
- Designed promotional materials (flyers, posters, banners) with Adobe Creative Suite.
- Delivered presentations on studying computer science and university life.
I supported students in programming, formal logic, and related computer science courses through technical development, instruction, and scalable teaching tools.
- Designed and implemented a modular framework for automated grading of programming assignments, significantly decreasing student support requests and cutting test implementation time; the system remains in ongoing use at the university.
- Developed test cases in collaboration with instructors, ensuring clear, beginner-friendly feedback for students.
- Led weekly support sessions (in-person, remote, hybrid) ranging from one-on-one help to lecture-style reviews.
- Oversaw exams and built tools to detect plagiarism and AI-generated work.
This role combined software engineering with academic mentorship, enhancing both learning outcomes and instructional efficiency.
During the pandemic, I contributed to the creation of comprehensive lecture materials for the Formal Systems course to help support students facing challenges with remote learning. I prepared structured, clear content in LaTeX, covering all major topics of the course - including logic, formal languages, automata theory, and proof systems.
Developed and maintained a suite of software for the world’s biggest game for over a decade, resulting in over 25 million downloads across multiple platforms (among other projects).
- Designed, implemented, and iterated on gameplay features, performance optimizations, and custom systems using Java and Minecraft’s unofficial modding APIs (Modloader, ModloaderMP, Forge, NeoForge, etc.).
- Built and maintained a strong user community through documentation, updates, and responsive issue tracking.
- Managed all stages of the software lifecycle: design, development, testing, deployment, and ongoing support.
- Collaborated with other developers in the modding community; some projects were team-based, requiring coordination using Git and project management tools.
- Continuously adapted to changes in the underlying Minecraft engine and modding frameworks over more than a decade.
Selected Projects
A selection of projects. For a full and categorized list, please refer to the home page of my GitHub profile (linked in the sidebar).
Master's Thesis - Modular Automation Backend for a Smart Home Platform
The main task of the master's thesis was the design and implementation of a modular automation backend for the smart home platform Honua, focusing on a flexible and extensible rule system. The project involved developing a template-based engine that allows users to define automation rules combining various triggers, conditions, and actions in a structured and dynamic way. Each rule can respond to both time-based and event-based inputs, evaluate complex logical conditions, and perform multiple actions such as device control or rule activation. The backend was implemented in Go, leveraging gRPC and Protocol Buffers for efficient communication with the Flutter-based frontend and deploying the system via Docker on a Raspberry Pi. In essence, the thesis centered on building a scalable, high-performance automation logic framework that significantly enhanced Honua's backend architecture and its integration with the existing system.
Thesis and Presentation PDFs below.
Sliding-Window Protocol Analysis & DoS Vulnerability PoC
Analysed and modelled a legacy sliding-window protocol by capturing real-world traffic (Wireshark) and implementing a Go-based simulator to validate protocol behavior and server responses. Complemented this with machine-code reverse engineering in Ghidra to locate the root cause of a denial-of-service condition; produced a controlled proof-of-concept and coordinated disclosure and remediation with server operators.
Source code kept private for ethical reasons.
goset Go Library
Open-source Go library providing a generic set type with set arithmetic operations (union, intersection, difference). Designed for performance and ease-of-use in Go projects.
Auto-Grading Framework with AI & Plagiarism Detection
Developed a modular Java-based framework for automated grading of programming assignments. The system provides detailed, actionable feedback to students and an intuitive interface for instructors to design and maintain tests efficiently. Integrated plagiarism detection, including mechanisms for identifying AI-generated submissions, ensuring academic integrity. The framework significantly reduced student support requests and test implementation time, and remains in active use at the university.
Automated Player-Stats Tracking Website
Prototype for player stats tracking in Go, built while I was still learning. A GitHub Actions runner fetches new 2D replays every 24h, parses them, stores data in per-player JSON, and generates per-player HTML pages. DogTag images are now rendered via HTML5. The runner commits, pushes, and auto-deploys everything. A fun but cursed prototype with plenty of quirks.
Source code is private to avoid misuse (e.g., "negative" leaderboards).
Data-Driven Game Mechanics Implementation
Developed a data-driven Minecraft mod enabling custom spell creation through a JSON-based scripting system. Implemented modular design and compatibility with other mods, with comprehensive documentation hosted on GitHub. Achieved significant adoption with 500k+ downloads.
CTL Model Checker
Implemented a Computation Tree Logic (CTL) model checker in Go, bridging formal verification theory and practical tool support for finite-state systems. Supports generation and evaluation of CTL formulas over state transition graphs. Beat the state-of-the-art model checker (with certain acknowledgments).
Bachelor's Thesis - Automated Testing and Verification of Atomic LR/SC Instructions and Thread-Safe Data Structures
The project focused on implementing automated tests in selfie (see below) for the atomic load-reserved (LR) and store-conditional (SC) instructions and for a thread-safe Treiber stack built on top of them. The main challenge was to reliably reproduce specific thread interleavings during execution to verify correct synchronization behavior, requiring precise control over context switches in the emulator. Additionally, the malloc() function was adapted to be thread-safe using LR/SC without causing livelocks, and heap memory sharing across threads was ensured. The work ultimately extended the autograder to automatically validate correct concurrent implementations of these components.
Thesis and Presentation PDFs below.
selfie System - Compiler, Emulator, Hypervisor
I am a big contributor of the selfie project at the Department of Computer Science of the State University of Salzburg in Austria - an educational software system of a tiny self-compiling C compiler, a tiny self-executing RISC-V emulator, and a tiny self-hosting RISC-V hypervisor. My contributions influenced every compiler construction course since 2023.
Simulation Engine for Trading Card Game Mechanics
Engineered a comprehensive trading card game simulation within Minecraft, faithfully replicating real-world card sets and pack dynamics via community contributions and outsourcing. Implemented a manual play system that avoids traditional GUI menus, providing an immersive, real-time interface. Designed modular components for game stations, supporting both single-player and multiplayer interactions. Open-sourced the project to enable community-driven content creation, including custom cards and server configurations.
Academic Theses
Master's Thesis
Design and Implementation of a Template-Based System for Flexible Smart Home Automation
Thesis PDF Presentation PDF
Bachelor's Thesis