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Thomas des Courières
Head of engineering in multicultural environments

Summary

Head of Engineering with 20+ years of full-stack experience, leading teams while staying hands-on with code. Passionate about building high-quality software and developing people in multicultural environments.
Fluent in 4 languages, lived in 3 European countries and thriving in diverse teams.

Work Experience

CHECK24 Vergleichsportal - Girokonto November 2023 – Present
Munich, Germany
https://www.check24.de
Head of Department IT

Leading the Girokonto-IT department with full technical and disciplinary responsibility for three development teams.

Highlights
  • Technical and disciplinary leadership of aprox. 25 engineers
  • Responsibility for planning, managing and implementing new software projects as well as maintaining and enhancing existing systems
  • Ensuring high software quality through definition of development standards and establishment of sustainable best practices
  • Ensuring stable, secure and performant operation of production applications including server infrastructure and deployment processes
  • Close collaboration with business departments to align technical solutions with functional and strategic requirements
  • People management and development including regular feedback and development discussions
  • Driving the adoption of modern engineering practices including AI-assisted development and tooling such as Cursor
  • Full responsibility for recruiting processes, from needs assessment through selection and onboarding of new employees
  • Hands-on involvement in architectural decisions and daily coding (Java/Spring Boot/React, databases, CI/CD)
CHECK24 Vergleichsportal - Girokonto November 2021 – October 2023
Munich, Germany
https://www.check24.de
Team Leader

Technical and team leadership for the Girokonto-Web IT team.

Highlights
  • Technical and disciplinary leadership of 10 engineers
  • Maintenance of existing systems and evolution of the platform
  • Establishment of development standards and best practices
  • Technology selection and architectural decisions
  • Collaboration with business departments for targeting the right technical solutions
  • Team development and regular feedback discussions
  • Participation in IT recruitment processes
  • Active coding and architectural involvement (Java/Spring Boot/React)
Pixel GmbH August 2017 – October 2021
Munich, Germany
https://www.pixel.de
Technical lead, Java / Spring Boot full-stack

Software architect and then tech lead, on customer projects as well as on internal ones.

Highlights
  • Architecture and development of a digitalisation application. Spring Boot & IoT
  • Technical lead and software architect for a critical customer in the energy branch
  • Planning and running technical workshops
  • Mentoring of junior developers and coaching thesis students works
  • Participation in the recruitment process
Alten for Amadeus - B2B for travel and tourism August 2015 – July 2017
Sophia-Antipolis, France
https://amadeus.com
Senior developer, Java back-office

Development of new features for a customisation framework for big sized web applications.

Highlights
  • Development and maintenance
  • Version Management with regard to other teams
CrossKnowledge - SaaS provider of a B2B E-learning platform July 2013 – July 2015
Sophia-Antipolis, France
https://www.crossknowledge.com
Senior developer, PHP Full-stack

Highlights
  • Full-stack development and maintenance on the PHP SaaS solution
  • Coaching of junior developers
  • Scrum of scrums
gfi informatique - IT consulting November 2010 – June 2013
Sophia-Antipolis, France
https://gfi.world
Experienced developer, Java full-stack

Missions for Air France and EADS

Highlights
  • Architecture and development
  • Technical lead
  • Acting project lead
Steria Iberica July 2008 – October 2010
Murcia, Spain
https://www.soprasteria.com
Developer, Java full-stack

Missions for the Health Service of Murcia

Highlights
  • Development and maintenance
  • Organisation after the agile values and principles
FrashBrain September 2007 – June 2008
Granada, Spain
Developer, PHP full-stack

Analysis and development of a web application for distributed video streaming

Highlights
  • Analysis and development from scratch

Contact

+49 (0) 1577 / 94 23 519
thomas@descourieres.fr
thomasdescourieres
Munich, 81245 DE

Skills

Leadership & Strategy
Engineering leadership, People management, Hiring & organizational design, Performance management, Roadmapping & prioritisation,
Delivery & Engineering excellence
Software quality, Development standards, Best practices, CI/CD, Release management, Automation,
Architecture & Scalability
Microservices, Monoliths, API design, Scalability & cost optimisation, System architecture, Spring Boot,
Frontend & Web
React, TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, Sass, Accessibility,
Data & Persistence
PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, Oracle DB, MongoDB, Redis, Hibernate, Query tuning,
Tools & Collaboration
Git/GitHub/GitLab, JIRA, Confluence, Cursor (AI-assisted dev), Code review, Recruiting & onboarding,

Languages

  • FrenchNative speaker
  • EnglishFluent
  • GermanFluent
  • SpanishFluent

Education

Interests

Running in competitions
Cooking baguettes