Hi, I’m Sebastian Poxhofer – Tech Lead for Developer Experience & Platform Engineering at N26. I design, scale, and evolve internal platforms that let product teams ship faster and safer across multi-cluster Kubernetes and hybrid (cloud + datacenter) environments in regulated contexts (finance, government, insurance, healthcare).
Over the past decade I’ve moved from the experimental chaos of homelabbing into building resilient, compliant, and developer-friendly platforms at scale. My work blends: Kubernetes architecture, IDP enablement (Backstage), supply chain & dependency governance (Renovate), observability (OpenTelemetry), and SRE/operational excellence practices.
My Value Proposition
I help organizations transform ad‑hoc infrastructure into a productized internal platform with clear interfaces, paved paths, and measurable developer outcomes. The result: shorter lead times, lower cognitive load, higher reliability, and sustainable security & compliance.
Core Focus Areas
- Platform & DevEx Strategy: Vision, north-star architecture, maturity assessment, org & ownership model, product mindset adoption.
- Kubernetes Platform Architecture: Multi-cluster / multi-region design, GitOps (Argo CD / Flux), cluster lifecycle (Cluster API), upgrade & drift management, cost & capacity optimization.
- Hybrid Cloud & Datacenter Integration: Secure connectivity, service discovery, workload placement strategy, gradual migration & coexistence patterns.
- Golden Paths & Internal Developer Portal (Backstage): Software & infra templates, scorecards, tech docs, plugin design (including custom dependency intelligence via Renovate data).
- Supply Chain Security & Dependency Management: Renovate program design, policy-as-code, SBOM integration, vulnerability triage workflows, automation guardrails.
- Observability & Operational Insight: OpenTelemetry-first telemetry pipelines, metrics/traces/log unification, SLO frameworks, actionable dashboards vs vanity graphs.
- Governance & Compliance Enablement: Policy enforcement (OPA/Gatekeeper/Kyverno), auditability, guardrails vs gates, separation of concerns, secure defaults.
- Reliability & SRE Practices: SLO definition, error budgets, incident review loops, capacity planning, resilience testing.
- Developer Productivity Analytics: Lead time, MTTR, onboarding time, dependency freshness, reliability indicators – turning metrics into platform backlog signals.
Selected Impact Themes
- Reduced dependency patch cycle time & minimized critical vulnerability exposure windows through Renovate automation programs.
- Accelerated service onboarding via curated templates & golden paths (infra + CI + telemetry baked in) surfaced through Backstage.
- Lowered operational toil with GitOps-driven fleet management and standardized cluster baselines.
- Improved release confidence & mean time to recovery through robust telemetry, SLO governance, and actionable runbooks.
- De-risked regulated workloads by embedding compliance controls into platform layers instead of manual approval gates.
What I Deliver
| Category | Outcomes |
|---|---|
| Platform Vision & Roadmap | Actionable maturity model, phased adoption plan, stakeholder alignment |
| Kubernetes Architecture | High-availability & scalable multi-cluster design, lifecycle & upgrade playbooks |
| Golden Paths (Backstage) | Templates, software catalog curation, scorecards, plugin extensions |
| GitOps Enablement | Repo structure, environment promotion strategy, drift detection, RBAC model |
| Supply Chain & Dependencies | Renovate policy architecture, vulnerability triage workflow, freshness reporting |
| Observability & Telemetry | OTel pipelines, SLOs, dashboards, alert strategy (noise reduction) |
| Governance & Policy | Guardrail policies, compliance evidence automation, audit trail design |
| Reliability & Operations | Incident review framework, resilience testing patterns, capacity models |
Engagement Models
- Assessment & Strategy Sprint (2–4 weeks): Maturity baseline, gap analysis, prioritized roadmap.
- Implementation Partnership: Hands-on enablement delivering architectural foundations, automation, and golden paths.
- Targeted Deep Dives: Focus on a single pillar (e.g., GitOps, Backstage adoption, supply chain security, OTel rollout).
- Custom Development: Backstage plugins, Renovate data integrations, platform tooling extensions.
- Workshops & Training: Kubernetes platform operations, SLO design, policy-as-code, IDP product mindset.
- Ongoing Advisory: Fractional platform/DevEx leadership, roadmap refinement, metrics instrumentation.
Why Work With Me?
- Tech Lead DevEx (N26): Real-world experience scaling a platform in a fast-moving, regulated fintech context.
- Renovate Maintainer: Deep knowledge of dependency automation & supply chain security levers.
- OpenTelemetry Contributor: Up-to-date on emerging observability standards & implementation pitfalls.
- Backstage Community Member & Contributor: Experience crafting plugins & integrating dependency intelligence into IDP workflows.
- Hybrid & Regulated Experience: Delivered platforms spanning German health insurance, government, banking – embedding compliance without crushing velocity.
- Product Mindset: Treating the platform as a product with discovery, feedback loops, measurable outcomes.
- Open Source Ethos: Preference for transparent, extensible solutions over opaque vendor lock-in.
Selected Writing & Talks
Reinforcing practical expertise with public knowledge sharing and OSS contributions.
Blog Articles
- Renovate: Keep your OpenTelemetry Collector up to date!
- Backstage: How to set up Renovate
- Renovate: My favorite features
- Renovate: No Datasource? No problem!
- Renovate: Merge dependencies with confidence
- Renovate: Could you please bump that version?
- K8s monitoring v2: Why are there no logs?
Conference & Community Talks
- Extract dependency data on scale with Renovate
- Building a developer portal the OpenSource way: An introduction to Backstage
- Renovate: Let’s upgrade your dependency workflow
- OpenTelemetry: from Frontend to Backend
- OpenTelemetry: How to debug user performance in your frontend
- OpenTelemetry: OTEL and Kafka
Open Source Contributions
- Renovate core & ecosystem maintainer: github.com/renovatebot/renovate
- Backstage plugin & platform integration work: Backstage commits
- OpenTelemetry contributions (instrumentation & adoption advocacy): OpenTelemetry JS commits
- Additional public work & tooling experiments: GitHub Profile
Signals I Can Help You If…
- Lead times are increasing and teams reinvent infra patterns repeatedly.
- Kubernetes footprint grew organically; upgrades, policies, and cost feel fragile or ad‑hoc.
- Backstage (or another IDP) adoption is stalling beyond initial enthusiasm.
- Vulnerability backlog & dependency drift are outpacing remediation capacity.
- Observability data exists but reliability decisions feel guessy.
- Hybrid/on-prem + cloud integration is slowing modernization efforts.
Getting Started
Send a short note describing your current pain points or desired outcomes. I can quickly shape an engagement scope and a first actionable milestone.
Let’s build a platform your engineers love—and your auditors trust.
(Fun fact: I might be headbanging to metal while refining your golden path templates.)