Markus Kollers

15 years · from engineer to founder

Markus Kollers

Product and engineering in one person.

I build digital products end to end, from concept to running in production. I do my best work when I'm shaping the product, not handed a finished spec.

Get in touchLinkedIn

Available for new projects · Frankfurt & remote

Portrait of Markus Kollers
At a glance
01
Product & business case
First question: what should the product do, and who pays for it? Then code.
02
Architecture & cloud
Cloud-native on Kubernetes. CI/CD and monitoring are standard with me, not an add-on.
03
Hands-on full-stack
Frontend, backend, infrastructure. I stay technical and make the architecture calls myself.
04
Agentic engineering
The build runs across several AI agents in parallel. That gives me a team's output, even when I build solo.
Selected work
Freelance · concept, architecture & buildabout 160 hoursLive since 2026

Alpha Meeting Rooms

An aging booking system, rebuilt from scratch.

Problem
The original system came from me and my team back then. Eight years on it was technically outdated and had never been built for the booking volume it had grown into. Some of the early assumptions no longer matched how the client actually worked.
Approach
A full remake, solo from the idea to running in production. Booking works without a mandatory account: see availability, pick a room and a time, confirm. Editing and cancelling run through magic links in the email. That takes the manual follow-up off the client's plate.
Outcome
In production since mid-2026. Built solo with agentic engineering, in the time it used to take a whole team.
Claude CodeAgentic EngineeringNext.jsPostgreSQLbetter-authResendNetlifyView live
Founder & managing directorsince 2026

Qrafto

My own SaaS for the trades and construction, built with a swarm of AI agents.

Problem
Trades and construction firms often work with software that misses their day-to-day reality. I'm building a product that fits where the work actually happens.
Approach
A cloud-native platform on Kubernetes, fully owned end to end: architecture, CI/CD, monitoring and a security concept with EU hosting. Every change runs against an automated test suite.
Outcome
Up to eight AI agents work on the build in parallel. As a solo founder that gives me the throughput of a small team.
Claude CodeAgentic EngineeringKubernetesHelmTypeScriptPlaywrightCI/CDView live
Technical implementation, volunteer2021Open source

Eschomat

A voting guide for the municipal election in Eschborn.

In collaboration with Stefan Eckner

Problem
Local election manifestos are hard going. First-time and young voters in particular drop off before they know what the parties stand for locally.
Approach
A voting guide made for Eschborn: a neutral explanation for every thesis and, in one click, each party's position. The idea and lead came from Stefan, the technical build from me.
Outcome
Online in time for the election and open to everyone. A project from the neighbourhood that made local politics a little more accessible.
AngularTypeScriptSSRView live
Career
  1. since 01/2026

    Founder & Managing Director

    Qrafto UG · Remote

    My own B2B SaaS for the trades and construction. As founder I own the business model, product and system architecture, from strategy to running in production. External services such as DATEV and e-invoicing (XRechnung/ZUGFeRD) are cleanly integrated, with GoBD and GDPR compliance built in from the start. I develop the product AI-first, mostly through agentic coding, and steer it by SaaS metrics like MRR, active customers and churn.

    B2B-SaaSKubernetesTypeScriptClaude Code
  2. since 11/2024

    Chief Technology Officer

    kolula solutions UG · Remote

    PropTech platform with self-developed smart lockers. I own the entire IT and the hardware and advise on the web product. I cleaned up the inherited, organically grown system landscape, made quality measurable through monitoring for the first time and cut lead time from over a month to under a week. I replaced a whole external dev and QA team with agentic coding, at the same output.

    IoTSmart LockerAgentic CodingClaude CodeCloudMonitoring
  3. 10/2022 – 09/2024

    Software Architect / Tech Lead

    Basalt-Actien-Gesellschaft · Werhahn-Gruppe

    Built a new development unit and set its direction through architecture and technical standards, more thought leadership than formal authority. Consolidated a fragmented system and data landscape, from isolated tools and Excel to a single shared data basis, and designed a central platform for more than 100 of the group's plants. Introduced Kubernetes and microservices via GitLab CI/CD and steered delivery through DORA metrics.

    KubernetesHelmNode.jsReact / Next.jsGitLab CI/CDSAP-Integration
  4. 10/2021 – 09/2022

    Software Architect IoT / Cloud

    Tecan Software Competence Center · Wiesbaden

    Designed complex enterprise architectures for connected devices in a heavily regulated environment, including cybersecurity risk analyses. Drawing on my experience, I advised project leads and product managers on project plans and product concepts.

    Enterprise-ArchitekturCybersecurityC# / .NETAngularIoT
  5. 07/2021 – 09/2021

    Head of Development

    VP Verbund Pflegehilfe · Mainz

    Defined role profiles, goals and salary bands and introduced consistent goal and feedback reviews. On the technical side, moved from manual deployment to CI/CD pipelines with zero-downtime and automatic rollbacks, so the CTO no longer had to release every week and the team could ship on its own. That established a "you build it, you run it" culture.

    CI/CDZero-DowntimeAzureC# / .NETTeam-Enablement
  6. 01/2017 – 06/2021

    Software Engineer to Head of Product

    vertical GmbH · Sulzbach (Taunus)

    From software engineer to head of product in four and a half years. Built and led a development department for custom digitalisation projects, led the agile product team for the "vertical desk" platform, and established Angular, Docker, Kubernetes and CI/CD as standards.

    AngularC# / .NETGoDockerKubernetesCI/CD
  7. 10/2018 – 04/2020

    Guest Lecturer (part-time)

    DHBW Mannheim

    A lectureship at DHBW in the "New Concepts" module, initiated by a friend and run by a team of five. I joined occasionally, gave lectures on modern web development with an introduction to JavaScript and Angular, and supervised one bachelor's thesis.

Earlier roles
  • Angular Developer · Universal-Investment07/2016 – 12/2016
  • Fullstack Developer · Matrix42 AG03/2015 – 06/2016
  • C# / Python Developer · BÖWE SYSTEC GmbH11/2012 – 02/2015
  • Java Developer · OSComputing AG01/2012 – 10/2012
Skills & capabilities
Core stackfamiliar

Leadership & collaboration

Team building & leadershipMentoring & coachingTechnical standards & quality cultureCross-functional collaborationStakeholder managementRemote & international teams

AI & agentic engineering

Agentic CodingMulti-agent orchestrationClaude CodeLLM integrationMCP (Model Context Protocol)Prompt Engineering

Languages

TypeScriptC# / .NETNode.jsSQL / T-SQLPythonJavaGoBash / ShellC++PHP

Frameworks

React / Next.jsExpressTailwind CSSAngularASP.NETAstro

Cloud & DevOps

KubernetesHelmDockerCI/CDGitOps & MonorepoPrometheus / Grafana / LokiServerlessAzureAWSGCPDevSecOps

Data & messaging

PostgreSQLMS SQL ServerRabbitMQMongoDBRedisDgraphSQLiteFirebase / Firestore

Practices & methods

Test-driven developmentMicroservicesREST / APIsEvent-Driven ArchitectureSystem designSAST (SonarQube)Agile / Scrum / KanbanE2E tests (Playwright)GraphQL
Education
How I work

At two companies I was there from the first line of code to a finished development department. That range shaped how I work: close to the business, hands-on in the tech, and set on running things properly rather than just shipping them.

What draws me most is owning a product from the idea to running in production. "You build it, you run it" is not a slogan for me, it is how I build software.

Beyond work

Most of my time goes to my family. Otherwise you will find me working on the house, where I do almost everything myself. Building seems to suit me, at the keyboard and on the building site.

Contact

Got a product in mind?
Let's talk.

mail@markuskollers.de
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