Welcome to My New Blog

I am pleased to introduce my blog. After more than 14 years in web development, it is time to share knowledge and experiences — and to tell a bit more about myself than what fits on a business card.

What Can You Expect Here?¶

In this blog I write about topics that shape my daily work:

• Symfony & PHP: Best practices, new features, performance tips
• Shopware: Plugin development, customizations, migration from 5 to 6
• DevOps & Linux: Docker, CI/CD, deployment strategies, openSUSE server operations
• Testing: PHPUnit, Playwright, E2E testing with Symfony
• Java & C#: Carried over from earlier projects, occasionally relevant
• AI Tools: Practical experience with Claude Code, Cursor and others

My Path to Self-Employment¶

Being self-employed was never the original plan — it happened step by step.

It started at Onlineprinters GmbH in Neustadt an der Aisch, where I began as a junior developer working with Symfony 1.4 and AngularJS. A great school: large team, high standards, extensive codebase.

From there I moved to deejay.de e.K. — a specialist retailer for vinyl records and DJ equipment. Not a classic software company, but a fascinating job: I managed the shop's server farm and learned how a single person can keep infrastructure running.

After that came HEPTACOM GmbH, where I worked as a senior developer in the Shopware e-commerce space — and dived deep into the Shopware ecosystem for the first time.

At GedankenSchmiede GmbH I started as a freelancer. The project: a huge B2B dealer portal. The collaboration went so well that I was hired as a full-time employee — a nice sign.

Something similar happened at Einstein Newton GmbH: Initially engaged as a freelancer for Shopware 5 and Shopware 6 projects, later becoming a permanent team member.

Two of my clients hired me as an employee after successful projects — not because I was cheap, but because the results were right.

Since I have been working fully freelance again, that is my benchmark: delivering projects so well that clients ask whether I could stay longer.

Beyond the Code: DJ and Linux¶

If you only read my CV, you will find the entry deejay.de e.K. and might think: "Retail, okay." What it does not show: I have been an enthusiastic DJ streamer for years.

Under the name DJ Ti Max I stream sets — house, techno, electronic music. A hobby that has nothing to do with client projects, and precisely for that reason it is valuable. The accompanying website (dj-ti-max.de) is run by myself — on Symfony, of course, on my own server, of course.

This server runs on a Hetzner Dedicated Server with openSUSE Leap. Linux is not a necessary evil for me but a deliberate choice: I value the control, the transparency and the stability. nginx, PHP-FPM, MariaDB, Docker for Mailcow, Umami and Remark42 — all configured, operated and maintained by myself.

This means: when I write about server topics, I write from operations experience, not from theory.

Why a Blog?¶

As a freelancer I work on projects daily and keep encountering problems for which there is no good German-language resource. I want to document the solutions I find here — as a reference for myself and as help for other developers.

Furthermore: anyone who wants to get to know my working style will get a better impression here than from any list of references.

Technical Background¶

This blog is deliberately kept simple: Markdown files with YAML frontmatter, rendered via league/commonmark in Symfony. No CMS, no database — just fast, static content with full syntax highlighting via CodeMirror 6.

I look forward to the exchange. If you have questions or suggestions, you can reach me anytime via the contact form.