Julius Hetzel

Hi,
I am Julius

I am a cloud & platform engineer
with 10+ years of software engineering experience.
I design and build the foundations that power
scalable, resilient systems.

What i do

From cloud foundations to developer tooling, I enable product teams to focus on building — while I ensure everything beneath is maintainable, scalable and resilient.

Cloud Architecture & Infrastructure Automation

I design and build secure, scalable AWS environments using Infrastructure as Code and automated CI/CD.

reliable, predictable infrastructure with faster delivery.

Platform Engineering & Developer Enablement

I create internal platforms and tooling that streamline workflows and reduce complexity for product teams.

higher productivity, less friction, smoother development

Data & Workflow Engineering

I develop robust data pipelines and processing workflows for batch and streaming workloads

data-driven insights and workflows that scale with the business

Security & Compliance by Design

I design systems using solid security fundamentals such as least-privilege access, secure workflows, and safe deployment practices.

resilient systems with security built in from the start

Engineering Excellence & Team Growth

I help teams bring clarity to complex systems, improve engineering practices, and make better technical decisions. I mentor engineers and introduce sustainable development and delivery processes.

stronger, more autonomous teams building maintainable systems

Selected Projects

Project Logo
2022 - present

Cloud Platform & IaC Architecture

Led the design of PlanBlue’s cloud and infrastructure strategy, migrating their systems into IaC and creating reproducible environments. Built individually deployable stacks, automated deployments across cloud, on-premise and edge...

[read more]

awsterraformairflowpythondockerbitbucketcloud architecture

2024 - 2025

Terraform Deployment Orchestration Tool

Designed and implemented a cli tool that satisfied the needs of a multi-environment, multi-stack terraform deployment process. The goal was to create an acceleration layer that improved the process but was not required.

[read more]

pythontyperterraformci/cddocker

2024 - 2025

Unified Data Abstraction Layer

Designed and implemented a python framework that enabled the team to register new data processors and their data products only by configuration. The framework provided an interface to start data ingestion whenever data processing finished. It also dynamicaly created API routes to access the data products, providing configurable filtering and custom routes if needed.

[read more]

pythonairflowaws lambdamongodbfastapidockerrest api

2025 - 2026

Cross-Platform Task Scheduler

Designed and built a cross-platform task scheduler using python, AWS Lambda, SQS and SNS. With this solution we were able to schedule our legacy and GPU heavy workloads with non-virtualization limitations on-premise and in the cloud and scale with ease...

[read more]

pythonawsterraformfastapisqs/snslambdalinuxmongodbcodedeploy

2021 - 2022

Mobile-App Microservices Backend

Contributed to backend features and platform-level improvements of the microservices system. Key technologies used include AWS, NestJS, Kafka, OPA and Terraform. Besides feature development i enhanced the authorization layer using OPA/PIP...

[read more]

aws ecstypescriptnest.jsrest apigraphqlkafkaevent sourcingopaterraformbitbucket

2019 - 2021

E-Commerce Android App

Helped build the mobile Android app for a big hardware retailer from the ground up, shaping its architecture and core abstractions. My focus was on foundational, core components and core abstractions. As part of a breakout effort, I designed and built a reusable and fully customizable Android video call library based on AWS Chime...

[read more]

androidkotlinjetpack composegraphqlmobile architecturebitbucketgradle

Interested?

Let's work
together

Work Experience

Senior Platform Engineer & Architect

Deep-tech startup processing hyperspectral underwater imagery

Designed and delivered cloud platforms, infrastructure automation, and internal tooling for data-driven teams operating in complex, multi-environment setups.

  • Architected coastline-scale AWS platform (Batch/Lambda/Airflow); cloud/edge/on-premise
  • Built self-service Terraform platform; provisioning days -> minutes

Senior Software Engineer & DevOps

IT and consulting company

Contributed to backend service implementation, DevOps practices, and policy-based authorization using Open Policy Agent in distributed systems.

  • Delivered Terraform AWS components enabling consistent multi-env deployments
  • Extended OPA policy engine for microservices authorization across 30+ services
  • Built NestJS/Kafka microservices handling 5M+ mobile app users

Software Developer

Trading and e-commerce company specializing in beverages and related products.

Developed and maintained internal software and tools, including a warehouse management system.

Lecturer

Public university of applied sciences.

Taught and managed introductory programming course (programming 1.1 and 2.1 in Java) for bachelor students.

Professional References

“Julius has been a driving force behind our infrastructure, providing essential insights in building our (cloud) architecture from scratch and selecting the right technologies for our needs.

On top of that, he is a more-than-excellent developer and software engineer with a natural and effective drive to teach others to write better code and increase quality across the board.

He is very fast to understand and see how technologies and architectural decisions influence and integrate with the business and other technical teams. This has helped immensely in driving the entire PlanBlue tech stack in the right direction, across edge, on-premise and cloud.

I can’t recommend him enough and would work with him again anytime.”

- Guy Rigot
CTO
PlanBlue

“Julius has consistently delivered outstanding performance and proven himself as a reliable software engineer. Particularly noteworthy are:

  • Deep technical expertise and extensive architectural knowledge
  • Reliable and high-quality delivery as an Android Developer
  • Analytical problem-solving approach with a systematic approach
  • Smooth team collaboration and efficient communication
  • Proactive approach to work and reliable adherence to deadlines I highly recommend him for challenging technical positions.”

- Karl Bode
Senior Manager / Solutions Architect
Open Reply

“Julius is the best kind of programmer. He writes clean maintainable code and teaches everyone around him to do the same. He advocates for rational processes, and brings problems he notices to the attention of leadership in a prompt and solution-oriented manner. I would hire him again in a heartbeat”

- Mike Lee
Head of Engineering
PlanBlue

“Julius is an outstanding Software Engineer. He has an exceptional ability to grasp new concepts, which enables him to tackle complex challenges quickly without any loss of quality. He always strived to share his knowledge and was just as eager to learn from others.”

- Sascha Bosse
Android Tech Lead
Open Reply

Skills & Technologies

Cloud

AWSTerraformDocker

Data

Pipeline designDistributed processingKedroDaskzarr

Engineering

PythonTypeScriptKotlinJavaAPI DesignarchitectureAndroid

Orchestration

airflowevent-driven design

DevOps

CI/CDautomationBitbucketGitHub ActionsAnsibleTerraform Cloud

Team

mentoringtechnical leadershiparchitecture guidance