I'm currently helping leaders of the digital industry to be successful via Netlight. My current role is in a cross-functional team that seeks to own the company's technical dept while discovering and delivering new product optimization opportunities.

I entered tech because it I was able to reach a flow state while developing, and because I found software's ability to "do more with less" appealing. This ignited my passion for developing great software. However, later I found that even though the code is great, if not developed efficiently, the best code can be wasted. After working in a startup for almost 3 years, I realized there is nothing so useless as doing efficiently what should not be done at all.

That's why, today, I do not only strive to develop great software, I strive to understand the reason why it's needed and how best to deliver it, such that the most value is created.

Hello, I'm Christian, a curious software engineer based in Copenhagen.

A social impact data collection, analysis, and report platform for social service providers to measure their primary and secondary social value. The platform was built using .Net Core 3.1, C#, DynamoDB, React, TypeScript, and hosted with AWS using Elastic Beanstalk and EC2.

Impactly is a social impact platform where social service providers, NGOs, and companies can collect, analyze, and report their social return on investment using  primary and secondary social values. The platform was built together with another developer from scratch using React and TypeScript for the frontend, .Net Core 3.1 and C# for the backend, with a DynamoDB as database. The platform was hosted using AWS EC2 and Elastic Beanstalk with a CI/CD workflows using AWS CodePipeline.

Building a tech startup while solving a structural social problem

When we at the company realized that our previous product did not have a viable business model, the question then became; "What should we do next?". We were a team of eight people, who all wanted to start a successful company, but only doing so while solving one of the many structural social problems modern Danish society face. While building the previous product, our company attracted a senior social impact finance expert, the same person who did impact consulting at our last client. By tapping into his head, we realized there was a potential untapped marked with unmet needs, with customers who was willing to pay, which, to some degree, could be automated with software. What do you do, when you have eight people with different backgrounds who all think their solution is the best way to tap into this marked? You do a Design Sprint workshop. And that's exactly what I did.

Using Design Sprints to navigate uncertainty

The Design Sprint was a five day sprint that seeks to understand, collect and sketch ideas, decide on an idea, prototype the idea, and then validate it. I decided to use this format, because we all felt stressed on time. Something had to be figured out quickly! And because it included the right stakeholders correctly. The domain experts where included heavily in the understanding process, where they helped map out the problem. Whereas the product team mostly carried the solution-oriented part of the workshop, sketching and collecting ideas, deciding which to go forward on, and the prototyping of it. And the business developers helped in the validation part of the process.

Facilitating this Design Sprint was a great success, as it included everyone in our cross-functional team and it quickly gave us a starting idea to build a product and a company on.

To build the idea, we first started by shaping the critical elements in the frontend using TypeScript and React, with React Query as our data fetching tool and "state" handler, and some chart libraries, so that we had an interactive prototype that could be shown and used together with potential users or customers. When the shape of the application had taken form and we were more sure about what kind of data we needed, we started building the backend from scratch in C# and .Net Core 3.1 on top of AWS DynamoDB. Even though it was wayyy to early to worry about scale, we used AWS Elastic Beanstalk with Auto Scaling EC2 instances to ensure that the application could follow the load for a while.

Making customizable reports and charts with React

In the beginning, we thought it was necessary to both show data on individual citizens AND on an aggregated level for the organization. However, we didn't know exactly what was most important, so the natural response was to make it possible to make customizable dashboards where consultants or employees could pick what data they wanted to see and how. To implement this, we used the composable charting library built on React components, Recharts, and the grid layout system react-grid-layout that enables dragging and resizing of React components.

For the majority of the development, we were two engineers that worked full time on the application. Thinking of how few customers the product would have its first years, the considerations we made to scaling was probably not relevant.

- Don't use DynamoDB when your access patterns can change and scaling is not important
- Don't build everything from scratch, reuse what's already been built, even though "it's not your own"

A counseling platform for kids and adolescent, where they can find and connect with social service providers who can provide counseling to them. The platform was built using .Net Core 3.1, C#, DynamoDB, React, TypeScript, and hosted with AWS using Elastic Beanstalk and EC2.

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- Building for users and paying client. Client is happy if user is happy, but user is not necessarily happy if client is happy (SMS provider, single organizational entrance)

Lessons learned:
- Frontend first (design / user first) bc it determines api and functionality
- Slice vertically, not horizontally
- Don't rely on other peoples bad code, choose professional providers

Hello, I'm Christian, a curious software engineer based in Copenhagen.

Projects

Impactly -- Social Impact Platform

Diti

Feel free to contact me here