Making the Open Source World more secure

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about leaving my previous job to pursue some new and exciting opportunities. Well, it’s time I tell you what I’ve been up to recently.

Wait a second, what exactly is it you’ve been doing before?

That’s a question I’ve been getting a lot since… well since I started working. So over the last couple of years, I’ve held various product related positions. I’ve been responsible for prioritising development of new features, working closely with developers and stakeholders across the various companies. After I stopped being a developer, I became a product owner and as of more recently a product manager.

A big chunk of my time over the last couple of years I spent in big corporates in the hosting industry, where I tried to hold the WordPress and open source banners high where ever possible, while also meeting actual KPIs, OKRs and other obscure abbreviations.

Stepping out of my comfort zone

The hosting industry is an interesting space to work at. By being thrown in on the deep end, I learned lots during over my last couple of years there. But now, in 2025, for me it was time to step out of my comfort zone and seize an opportunity. Out of sheer luck, I had a chat with some friends at Patchstack earlier this year and quickly figured out they had an opening for their first product manager.

So now I’m taking a small step outside of my usual bubble and explore the amazing realm of cyber security.

Fast forward a couple of weeks

After getting to meet most of the team I’m absolutely over the moon. It’s been some time since I’ve worked with such an energetic and driven bunch of people. The absolute cherry on top is me getting to work on a genuinely innovative family of products and applying some of the knowledge I gained over the last 17+ years of working in the industry.

Face-Off

My current avatar has been in service since 2016. Back in the day, we asked the incredibly talented Florian Ziegler to be our photographer for WordCamp Frankfurt. And oh boy, he did! To this day, I think of these photos as some of the coolest shots of any WordCamp ever.

I vividly remember telling Florian to try and take a sneaky shot of me, because I was in dire need of an authentic but professional avatar back in the day. He did, and I was so happy with it, I kept it for years and years.

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Ending a chapter

Today, I kicked things off with a nice cup of tea, sat down at my desk, and had my last call as an employee at group.one. I’ve been a Senior Product Manager for group.one’s WordPress products for more than two years and had the pleasure of working with some of the most amazing people there, making some lifelong friends, and learning tons of stuff along the way.

Over the time I attended three WordCamp Europe’s with group.one (Athens, Torino, and Basel), organized 70 WordPress meetups and attended at least two dozen more.

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KrautPress Musings

For some time now, I’ve been thinking about how to scale KrautPress up a little. Back in 2016, I started this wonky German WordPress magazine called KrautPress. Over the years, it saw many contributors come and go. Some wrote just a post or two; others were true powerhouses, churning out high-quality content left and right. I truly appreciated everyone contributing.

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