Hi, I am Markus Schneider. I am the owner of Plexx Digital, a company that is here to help you with all your digitization efforts. My services comprise

  • IT consulting
  • IT project management
  • Software Architecture
  • Software Development

I am convinced that you need "keep your hands dirty" in order to build firm opinions on IT topics and be able to provide valuable advice to others. And that's exactly what I am doing.

I like to share. During my day-to-day work, I come across a lot of challenges, sometimes bigger ones, more often though rather small. Almost none of them is specific to me, so I am sharing with you how I got my arms around them.

Below, you can review the different locations and companies that I have worked at  before I went into business on my own. A more detailed assessment of my expertise can be found here: expertise. But feel free to contact me at any time to arrange a get-to-know meeting.

CV, Projects

The different stages and locations of my career as an IT professional are one important part of the equation. The projects I've worked on however are what really built my expertise. And while I have provided some impressions on this website, there's a lot more to tell over a cup of good coffee.

Owner
@ Plexx Digital - Markus Schneider

10/2018 - present

Since late 2018, I am providing my services based on my own company. Many of my former partners and customers are still relying on my expertise, but I have also built up a new clientship outside of my former environment. Please check out the (work in progress) list of  case studies. It is limited by nature, because some customers simply don't like to idea of being referenced in an online presence.

All the work I do for my clients is secured via a corresponding IT liability insurance. Click on the certficate logo below to see additional details.

Weitere Informationen zur IT-Haftpflicht von Plexx Digital, Mönchengladbach 

Solution architect, Software development
@Parking Matters, UK

09/2019 - 03/2020

The task at hand was to design and develop a platform to receive static and dynamic data about off-street car parks and on-street parking zones in Manchester, Liverpool and Salford and to then make this information available to a number of mobility providers (to feed their mobile applications). The project was done in cooperation with Manchester City Council. The solution comprises a series of distributed microservices and also includes health/performance monitoring, as well as centralised logging. I am also the one to host the solution on Amazon Web Services for the duration of phase I of the project. Currently, a phase II is in discussion.

[software architecture, microservices, cloud]

Integration supporter, Consultant
@NN, Germany

12/2019 - present

My customer provides point of sales solutions to major mineral oil companies. The task at hand was to make their legacy software generation of POS software available via modern devices (tablets) and protocols (html5) at the petrol stations' cashier terminals. I am helping my client to implement a bridging technology based solution and getting approval from Apple.

[mobile applications, frontend technology, legacy integration]

Software architect, Software development
@Scheidt & Bachmann, Germany

12/2019 - 01/2020

The task was the design and implementation of a middleware software to be used in the parking garages at an international airport in the US. Registered customers can simply drive in and out of car parks by waiving an RFID tag. At the exit, a real-time online authorisation is performed through the software provided by me, and a tokenised credit card on file (at a PSP) is charged for the parking transaction.

[software architecture, backend development, REST]

Solution architect, Software development
@Scheidt & Bachmann, Germany

05/2019 - 09/2019

The project was for one of my customers' clients, a municipality in the south of Germany operating car parks across the city. It aimed at enhancing an end-user-facing web portal for customer self administration (more precisely: parking customers). Parkers have a long-range RFID tag attached to the windshield of their vehicle and can simply drive in and out of the car parks. Invoicing and payment is done in the backend. Users can log on to the portal and review their activity and billing. The backend part of the software is communicating with all connected car park systems as well as the billing software run by the municipality. The provided software is hosted by the municipality.

[software architecture, web development]

Software developer
@Scheidt & Bachmann, Germany

05/2019 - 10/2019

The project was geared around a mobile cashiering solution to be used at an international airport in the US. Cashiers would have a mobile device (smartphone/tablet), a belt-mounted receipt printer and an EMV conformant credit card payment terminal connected to the cashiering app. The solution was completed and tested. Due to other work at the airport, the roll-out is still pending.

[mobile development, mobile payment]

Consultant, Trainer
@SB Slovensko, Slovakia

02/2019 - 08/2019

The customer needed guidance for his own team of software developers. The team needed to find and establish a strategy for automated deployment of distributed web applications to a public cloud environment. My services included consultance on how to do this, exemplary implementation and extensive training for the team.

[cloud, CI/CD]

Solution architect, Consultant
@ SB Slovensko, Slovakia

09/2018 - 01/2019

The customer needed consultancy and support for a mobile application with

  • mobile payment integration (PayPal, credit card)
  • CMS (content management system) integration
  • Google Maps + Apple Maps integration
  • Application Gateway Backend

[software architecture, cloud, payment]

Solution architect, Consultant
@ Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH, Mönchengladbach

06/2017 - 01/2019

The project was about the establishment of a platform for multi-modal mobility services (public transport, parking, e-mobility). Different partners were involved coming from

  • automobile industry
  • service providers
  • software developers
  • infrastructure providers
  • operators

My tasks included

  • architectural support in a cross-organisational team
  • coordination of the implementation
  • definition and establishment of deployment and operation processes
  • consulting concering future enhancements

[IT project management, solution architecture, consulting]

Conceptual design, solution architect
@ Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH, Mönchengladbach

07/2017 - 07/2018

Conceptual design for a sustainable, distributed configuration management (15.000+ configuration parameters) across thousands of devices and network nodes. Project covered both, maintenance of configuration as well as provisioning.

[solution architecture, NodeJS]

Solution architect, project manager
@ Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH, Mönchengladbach

04/2017 - 09/2018

The project aimed at combining 200+ remote installations (car parks) into a cloud-based online solution involving

  • definition and implementation of interfaces to 3rd parties
  • IoT-esque integration of local RFID infrastructure
  • transition of business logic from on-premise to cloud
  • setup and operations of the required cloud infrastructure (IBM Softlayer)
  • onboarding of new project partners / integrators

The project setup comprised

  • an off-shore subsidiary of the end client (located in India)
  • two external local software development partners
  • an internal developer team
  • two internal co project managers
  • an external, client-side project manager

[project management, solution architecture, cloud]

Head of strategic IT projects, authorised officer
@ Scheidt & Bachmann, Mönchengladbach

01/2015 - 09/2018

Establishment of inhouse standards in terms of software technology and methodologies

  • methodology
  • technology
  • tools
  • build chain
  • frameworks
  • architecture
  • cloud transition
  • deployment

Harmonisation of activities in three product divisions with a total of 175 developers.
[software technology, methodology, cloud, CI/CD]

Technical director, authorised officer
@ Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH, Mönchengladbach

01/1998 - 12/2014

Comprehensive technical responsibility for a complete product division (parking and leisure centres).
[leadership, software architecture, methodology, RDBMS, Java]

Head of international project management
@ Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH, Mönchengladbach

01/1994 - 12/1997

Build-up of a team for internal project management (40+ countries) in the S&B parking division. Management of large-scale projects.
[project management, team building, leadership]

Co-owner and managing director
@ sfr GmbH, Aachen

01/1990 - 12/1993

At the time, we were specialised on sophisticated tools for software developers. Our core product, "dbü", transformed dBase application source code into C source code and then compiled it into a royalty-free Windows executable.
[database, software architecture, modeling, interpreter technology]

Study: Computer Science
@ RWTH Aachen

09/1992