Sebastian Oelke

Team Leader, Chaos Conqueror, Engineer of Systems

Hi 👋

my name is Sebastian. I have been working as a software engineer in Berlin for a long time. Recently, my family and I moved to Shanghai 🇨🇳, where I work as a Principal Software Engineer.

🙋🏼‍♂️ I am a conscientious and very well structured working person. Friends and colleagues tell me that they appreciate my calm demeanor - even in stressful situations - and that this spreads over to the people I am working with. I am a Chaos Conqueror, establishing structure and clarity where necessary.

🌍 My whole professional life I worked with people around the world. I enjoy being in international environments. Diversity and different perspectives in a team are crucial for success. I can learn from a diverse set of people every day.

👨🏼‍💻 As a software engineer I have an eye for detail when it is necessary but also recognize the right moment to be pragmatic and move ahead. As a Tech Lead, Staff or Principal Engineer I believe that giving people trust to take the right decisions and ownership of what they build is the key factor to success. Failure is not a flaw but part of how we work. Learn from it and move on. I strive for transparency and autonomy within teams.

👨🏼‍🎓 I relish learning new technologies and approaches as long as I see a deeper reason behind learning them. I believe that agile methodologies done right are a recipe for success and fun. I like learning about personal development and how people behave as individuals and in groups. Head over to my reading list if you want to find out which books I am going through at the moment. If you are interested you can find details of my professional experience and education as well.

👨🏼‍🔧 I like to repair and tinker to understand how things work and to do something good to the environment.

Blog

On my blog I write about three major topics:

1. My experiences as a Software Engineer and Tech Lead: I share details about working in the software business, leading, growing teams and gluing them together, as well as mentoring and sponsoring people.
2. Working and living in China: My family and I moved to Shanghai, China, in March 2023. Months before I started working for the Shanghai team remotely from Germany before I joined them physically. I share cultural differences and lessons learned while living and working here.
3. Agile: I am a firm believer of agile principles. Hence, I share some basics and my experiences in this field.

Contact

Feel free to reach out if you have questions and want to connect to share experiences! If you want to get in touch with me check out Github, Twitter, LinkedIn or good old Email.