It’s that time: I’m looking for a job! I know y’all ain’t got much time, so I’ll first do a short version and then one with more detail.
If you want to help me, please help spread the word 💚 If you have the time and know me, leave me a recommendation – both by spreading and if you have the time on LinkedIn – seemingly I never needed one before and some folks are like “yo, what’s up with that?” 😅
The short version
I’m an experienced leader & product-minded engineer deeply interested in collaboratively building useful products. With a background spanning small startups to scaling unicorns, I bring a wealth of experience in Elixir, Ruby, SQL and some JavaScript. I love Open Source, participating in the community and giving talks. My passion for performance optimization and benchmarking led me to create benchee.
In my most recent role as a Senior Staff Engineer @ Remote, I led teams to success by removing obstacles, fostering a culture of collaboration and filling the gaps. Whether managing a product department of 15 or mentoring junior developers, my greatest joy comes from empowering others. I am fascinated by the human side of software development and continually strive for the optimal balance between immediate value delivery and long-term sustainability.
I’m now seeking new opportunities where I can leverage my skills and experience to make a meaningful impact. While I excel in roles like Staff+ Engineer, I’d love to explore opportunities in smaller companies or leadership positions such as CTO, Head of Engineering or Team Lead. Remote and asynchronous work environments are ideal for me, as they allow me to focus on delivering value while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
I’m considering both full time positions as well as freelancing opportunities either in Berlin or remotely.
You can find out more about me here:
If you want to get in touch, just drop me an email at pragtob@gmail.com.
Let’s get into some more detail, if you’re here to stay:
Who am I and why would you want to hire me?
My name is Tobi, on the web I’m known as PragTob. I won’t repeat too much of the “short version” above here – read it if you haven’t yet!
So, what kind of work have I done? I was a Senior Staff Engineer @ Remote helping the company scale according to its unicorn status, which included scaling up both the team (hiring and structure), the processes and the application architecture. I was responsible for the FinTech domain there – moving many millions each month securely, correctly and quickly. I enjoy the ambiguous nature of Staff Engineering work as well as the possibility to contribute in a variety of ways to have the biggest impact.
I’ve also worked as a people manager – functioning as a de facto head of engineering managing the entire product department of ~15 people. It’s a work I also deeply enjoy. It’s hard to say what I enjoy most, I think I enjoy being in a position where I can help improve things.
What can I help you with?
- Shipping features with a holistic view of the product in mind
- Collaborate on all the things™
- Taming big legacy applications
- Build the first version of a product and then hire the team to continue leading it
- Scale up your existing team
- Identify areas of technical improvement, weigh them and if worthwhile execute on them
- Level up the team
- Improve and streamline processes
- Identify and fix performance bottlenecks
- Just in general my experience, I’ve seen agencies, small startups, supported a unicorn growing from ~150 to ~1000 employees in a year and I worked at a tech giant – you see and learn a lot of things
The main technologies I’ve used and worked with:
- Elixir, Ruby & JavaScript (a bit rusty on JS, but I recently passed a React interview 😁)
- MVC frameworks (Rails, Phoenix)
- SQL databases (PostgreSQL)
- Monoliths and taming them (such as Domain Driven Design)
- I also have experience around microservices, extracting applications etc.
- Building APIs
- Background Job Systems (Sidekiq, Oban)
- Performance Improvements and in particular I love benchmarking
- Test Driven Development (ExUnit, RSpec…) and acceptance tests
- Both Functional Programming and Object Oriented Programming
Beyond that I believe that some of the most important skills are people and organizational skills:
- Navigating big organizations to find valuable tasks or information
- Understanding the product & stakeholders at a deep level
- Hiring (selection, interviews, designing tasks)
- Mentoring & skilling up
- Running effective meetings
- Getting people on the same page to make sure we ship what is needed
- Continuously learning
Beyond that I’ve been running the Ruby User Group Berlin for the past 11+ years. I speak at conferences and meetups (and even used to run conferences) about a wide variety of topics: from Communication & Collaboration over Benchmarking best practices all the way to Application Architecture. My most recent talk details my journey through Open Source.
Speaking of which, the 3 major open source projects I contributed to in major ways are:
- benchee – I’m a benchmarking nerd, this is the default (& very powerful) benchmarking library in elixir which I created
- simplecov – I became one of the maintainers of simplecov, the default code coverage library in Ruby
- Shoes4 – a Ruby GUI toolkit & DSL I spent many years pushing forward building on the works of legendary programmer “why the lucky stiff”
What am I looking for?
With my many interests this is difficult to say. Mainly, I’m looking for a company that is building something meaningful where I can help them achieve their goals. My absolute dream job would be someone just paying me to work on improving the Open Source Ecosystem in Elixir or Ruby – but I know that ain’t happening any time soon 😅
Much like a job ad, it’s unlikely for a job to tick all of the boxes and that’s fine – especially in the current tech climate. I’ll still break my preferences down more:
Position: There are too many positions I can envision myself doing depending on the circumstances. I want to be somewhere where my impact can go beyond code as I love to help people and improve processes. What that means is up to the situation: One day it’s shipping a feature, then it’s fixing a bug, the other day it’s mentoring someone, the next it’s hiring, then it’s talking to a customer to understand what they need – I’m flexible. A rough overlook of what I can imagine:
- Staff+ Engineer – this has been my 2 most recent roles, it’s ambiguous, it’s hard and I love it. The technical leadership, the flexibility, the potential impact on an organization – it can be so rewarding. I love it so much, I gave a talk about what it is. Sadly, the position isn’t common everywhere and especially not in smaller companies.
- Founding Engineer/Early CTO/Head of Engineering – I believe my combination of technical skills, product understanding as well as ability to grow and manage teams positions me perfectly for this. I can build the product and be hands-on while ramping up the team. It’s a role I wanted to work in for a long time.
- Manager/Team Lead/Head of Engineering/CTO – the difference to the above being a more mature company here. I’ve run a department of 15 and have since also gathered a lot more leadership experience, albeit as a Staff Engineer in huge companies but the technical leadership required there isn’t too different. I can help teams & products flourish.
- Senior Software Engineer – in the right circumstances I could be “just” a Software Engineer again.
- Developer Relations – through my open source and speaking I could also do well in DevRel or a related field. That said, I don’t think near constant travel suits me.
Location: Hybrid in Berlin or remote. I’m not looking to relocate and I don’t want to go back to the office full time at this point in time.
Business Domain: I love helping people solve real problems. I’d love to work on supporting people with mental illnesses for instance, as I see a lot of potential there. There are many good things out there, it’s easier to say what I don’t want to work with. I absolutely do not want to work on crypto currencies. Similarly, privacy-invading, gambling or products for the super rich aren’t something that interests me in particular. Working for a consultancy or agency also isn’t high up on my list, as I prefer to stay with a product for a longer time and don’t like constant travel (as in, living in a hotel for months).
Employment Type: I’m open to both full time employment and freelance work. If you see this and think you might need my help with something but it’s not a full time position – get in touch!
Tech Stack: I’m flexible on the tech stack – I believe in the right tool for the job and I’m happy to learn new things. That said, my core competencies are in Elixir (💜), Ruby & SQL.
Work/Life Balance: I’m not someone who’ll work nights and weekends on the regular. When something is burning, sure I will – but not as a regular mode of working. I believe in going at a sustainable pace if you want to go far.
Company Culture: I love companies that trust their employees, to allow for flexible working hours and locations. Supporting people in their growth is also something I value, for instance that going to and speaking at conferences is supported. Similarly, I appreciate companies who take the time to give back to the open source community.
I hope this gives you a good overview.
Getting in touch
Piqued your interest? You can check out my CV again. Feel free to send me an email to get in touch with me at pragtob@gmail.com!
Also, if you spread this in your network, I’d really appreciate it!
Journeys of a not so young anymore Software Engineer 
By far the very best public post I have ever seen for a job search. GO TOBI!