Janusz Nowakowski

I turn your vision into a working product.

Whether you’re building a product, modernising infrastructure or putting AI to work, I take responsibility for the technical decisions, write code and bring the team’s work together. We agree what matters next to your business and review working results together.

Let’s discuss your project Selected work

Experience across

UPU

WESEM

Selected work

Responsibility, in practice.

From a founder’s product to an international organisation’s platform. A selection of projects and roles from my professional background.

Architecture technology · Current engagement

From a founder’s vision to a working product

The goal: Turn a founder’s vision into a product for architectural firms.
My responsibility: As Director of Platform Engineering, I work directly with the founder, build the platform and bring individual tools together into a working product. My responsibility covers the technical whole and delivery.
What it enables: Working demonstrations and analysis of real project data help the founder and prospective customers evaluate the product and decide what comes next. The product helps architectural firms reuse their knowledge across projects. Development is ongoing.

Product development · Technical direction · Delivery

Roche · Machine learning platform · 2020–2021

Leading the delivery of a machine learning platform

The goal: Give data scientists a platform to develop and serve machine learning models.
My responsibility: Led technical development and delivery, shaped the architecture, coordinated developers and contributed code. Connected CI/CD with production deployment.
What it enables: A machine learning platform as a service on AWS, Kubernetes and Kubeflow, supporting the team’s work from model development to serving.

Architecture · Technical leadership · Platform delivery

UPU · Addressing Solutions · 2023–2024

A new direction for address search

Helped the team evaluate Elasticsearch, built automation to load address data from Azure, and developed performance-testing tools. The team took the code forward in its own repository.

Technical consulting · Automation · Team enablement

DanceConnect · Product collaboration

Working directly with the person behind the product

Working with Raphael on DanceConnect: understanding what the business needs, agreeing the next step and building the technology together. A direct relationship between the person shaping the business and the person helping build it.

Product thinking · Hands-on development

Hilti · Engineering leadership

Connecting engineering with the business

Built delivery pipelines and led DevOps work across Switzerland and India. Worked closely with management to connect technical decisions, team priorities and the needs of the business.

Team leadership · Cloud platforms · Delivery practices

WESEM · Manufacturing

One person responsible for the technology

Built the IT infrastructure and server room, and connected production machines to the network. With the freedom to make decisions, I took responsibility for technology that supported the everyday work of the company.

Technical ownership · Infrastructure · Manufacturing

UPU via Paranor · Data infrastructure

Building the platform behind the data

An earlier engagement for UPU through Paranor: architecture, infrastructure and automated deployment for a Hadoop platform on AWS. Practical engineering to give the team a platform to work with.

Architecture · AWS · Deployment automation

From my reference letters

“Sound technical experience. Direct communication. People-oriented. Proactively identified business risks.”
Head of Operations · Hilti

“Efficient, professional, reliable. Achieved objectives despite pressure and tight deadlines. Quickly became autonomous.”
Adecco · Google Switzerland

Working together

You work directly with me.

You have a partner who understands the goal and takes responsibility for the technical work. You can see what is moving forward, what needs a decision and what comes next.

Start with what matters

We discuss what you want to achieve, why it matters to the business and what is getting in the way. Together we establish where my involvement can make a difference.

Give the work a clear owner

We agree the outcome, the decisions I take on and how I work with your team. With that responsibility clear, we settle the scope, timing and commercial terms.

See the work move forward

I build, test and show you the results. At agreed checkpoints, we review progress, decisions, costs and the next step. Your team gets the code, documentation and knowledge to carry the work forward.

AI consulting and implementation for your business

My experience with machine learning platforms dates back to 2020 at Roche, where my work included architecture, hands-on development and leading delivery. Today, I bring that engineering experience to AI consulting and implementation. The Roche project

You may be exploring a first use for AI, or your team may already use several tools. I help connect them to the knowledge, systems and processes your business depends on. We start with one useful application, build it with your team and assess the results before expanding.

Make company knowledge useful
Bring relevant documents, decisions and project history into the work, so people can find and use the information they need.
Put a process into motion
Connect AI to existing tools for tasks such as document handling, research or reporting. Agree what it can do, where people review it and how to measure the result.
Help the team take ownership
Work with people on their actual tasks. Make the solution understandable, document how it works and give the team a way to maintain and improve it.

Ways to work with me

Fractional CTO and ongoing technology partner

Based in Bern, Switzerland, I work directly with founders and business owners as a fractional CTO and hands-on technology partner. We agree the technical decisions, delivery responsibilities and capacity you need, with regular reviews of progress and costs.

Leadership for a defined mission

For a platform, migration or engineering team that needs an experienced lead. A clear remit, practical delivery and a considered handover.

Clarity on a technical decision

For a question worth testing before you commit. An architecture review, working proof of concept or focused assessment with practical next steps.

The person you will work with

I’m Janusz.

A clear goal. The trust to take it forward.

I have spent 30 years building systems and working with the people who depend on them. Manufacturing at WESEM. Engineering leadership at Hilti. A machine learning platform at Roche. Financial infrastructure at Sygnum and BIS. Software and cloud work at Google Switzerland.

The projects I value most have a clear goal, a decision-maker I can talk to and the trust to take responsibility. I enjoy understanding the business as much as building the technology.

Explore my experience

I also write about technology and the people building it, including field reports and conversations for Technische Rundschau and Lightning.News.

Read my writing

Start with a conversation

What do you want
to make happen?

Tell me what you want to achieve, why it matters and what is getting in the way. We’ll discuss where I can take responsibility and help move your project forward.

Book a conversation [email protected]WhatsApp