Lukas still has his first book on coding “Java 2 in 21 Days” on his bookshelf, but he never planned to be a Software Engineer. After concluding his academic career with a PhD in Mathematics at Humboldt University Berlin, he joined Zalando, a European fashion e-commerce company, as a Product Manager right at the start of its rapid expansion in 2012. After a few years, Lukas seized the opportunity to transition into Software Engineering and to this day considers this the best decision of his career. In this role, he worked in Logistics, Recommendations, and Fulfillment systems, gaining experience with algorithmic optimization, modelling of highly stateful systems, high-throughput systems, and data pipelines. Currently, he works as a Principal Engineer, focused on SRE practices, simplifying architecture, and growing his fellow Senior Engineers.