I began working at Hofmann Language Services, a private language school, as a freelance web developer in January 2012. My first project was the school's international website. The previous site had been untouched for nearly a decade, so I was given complete freedom to design and build the new one from scratch. I approached it with a clear goal in mind — drive more enquiries by getting the fundamentals right: SEO, responsiveness, and accessibility.

The results spoke for themselves. Within the first month of going live, the school saw an 80% increase in conversions. It was one of my earliest projects, and looking back I can see how much I've grown as a developer since then — but the impact it had gave me the confidence to commit fully to this career path, and I've never looked back.

With the international site wrapped up, I moved on to the Japanese website. This one came with a unique challenge: the design had been created for printed flyers, and I had to find a way to translate it into something that worked on screen without losing its character. On top of that, I had to get up to speed with Japanese web design conventions and how Japanese text flows on a page — things that differ quite significantly from Western web design.

The effort paid off. Feedback from Japanese students was overwhelmingly positive — they appreciated that the site felt like it had been made with them in mind rather than simply adapted from the international version. Conversions from Japanese students saw a significant jump, validating the decision to give this audience their own tailored experience.

In 2026, Hofmann Language Services celebrated its 50th anniversary, and we decided it was the perfect opportunity to rebuild the Japanese website from the ground up with a fresher, more modern feel that also honored the milestone.

As with the original Japanese site, I was initially expected to adapt a flyer-based design for the web. After working through several iterations, I made the case to the school owner for letting me create an original design instead — and thankfully, he agreed. That decision made all the difference. Free from the constraints of an existing design, I was able to build something truly polished, responsive, and modern. It is, without a doubt, the work I am most proud of — a project that for me represents how much I have grown as a developer since that first website I built for the school back in 2012.

In January 2019, I joined Jobvalley, a service provider for young professionals, as a mobile engineer. I played a leading role in building the Jobvalley mobile app from the ground up, working alongside two other mobile engineers. Since its launch in January 2020, hundreds of thousands of Germans have used it to find work, and in 2022 the company recorded a turnover of €113.4 million alongside 20% revenue growth — numbers that reflect just how much traction the platform gained in a relatively short period of time.

This was my first experience working as an employee in tech rather than as a freelancer, and it turned out to be one of the most rewarding chapters of my career. There is something special about building something significant alongside a talented team, and the people I worked with at Jobvalley made it genuinely enjoyable. In October 2024 I handed in my resignation, and in January 2025 I moved to the Philippines with my family.