About Me
In the following, I will explain what I do, how I came to this somewhat unusual hybrid engineering role and what I particularly enjoy about it.
I am a German civil engineer and an R software engineer. Since my time as a data scientist I have been working with data in R, including acquisition, engineering, modeling, data visualization, and automation of all processes, much of it especially related to sports. I wrote about my experience and journey in the open-source R community with over 4,500 contributions to open-source projects on the Posit blog.
Software Engineering Experience
My software engineering experience consists of 5+ years in the field of open-source R software development. My main fields of activity include
- API communication, response parsing and application of several statistical models (mostly boosted decision trees) related to the National Football League. Developed R package nflfastR. Includes utilities for creating and maintaining a database of NFL data.
- Developed R package gsisdecoder, with a high efficient NFL ID decoder using C++.
- Launched Open Source Football, a blog where analysts share NFL related articles and publish their code (in R but also in other languages like Python).
- Launched rbsdm.com, a website that hosts several R shiny apps for advanced National Football League statistics and data visualization.
- Monte Carlo simulation of National Football League seasons with high efficient algorithms (based on R package data.table) for tie-breaking procedures and simulation with R package nflseedR.
- Formation of the nflverse hosting a fully automated data pipeline using GitHub actions.
- Advanced data visualization with ggplot2 extensions ggpath and nflplotR. Also tabular data visualization with gt extensions in nflplotR.
Professional Experience
My professional experience consists of 10+ years in the field of structural engineering in Germany. My main fields of activity include
- Structural calculations and design in concrete construction, steel construction, timber construction and composite construction
- Dynamic calculations and wind engineering
- Structural design of cable structures
- Project management
Research & Teaching Experience
From 2017 to 2022, I worked as a research associate at the Chair of Concrete and Masonry Structures at the Technical University of Munich. My main fields of activity included
- Experimental and numerical investigation of the load-bearing and deformation behavior of masonry under shear loading
- Numerical simulation of unreinforced masonry under shear loading - development of material models
- Teaching assistant in the Master’s degree program in Design of Masonry Structures and Tunneling