Karsten Thoms
Principal Software Engineer at itemis AG
Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolKarsten Thoms is a Principal Software Engineer based in Dortmund with over two decades of hands-on experience building Java backend systems, tooling, and cloud-native microservices. He combines enterprise delivery roles at itemis and Deutsche Bahn with deep open-source involvement—most notably contributions to the Eclipse SWT codebase and as a committer on Operaton, a free Java BPM engine forked from Camunda. Known for pragmatic architecture and tooling craftsmanship, he excels at fixing subtle cross-platform UI bugs, improving layout and event handling in long-lived frameworks. Colleagues rely on him to bridge customer project delivery with sustainable developer tooling and OSS stewardship. Outside work he’s a committed community member, speaker, and tool crafter who also keeps sharp as a handball goalkeeper and ardent Borussia Dortmund supporter.
11 years of coding experience
20 years of employment as a software developer
Dipl.-Informatiker (FH), Information Science, Dipl.-Informatiker (FH), Information Science at University of Applied Sciences and Arts Dortmund
English
Stackoverflow
39reputation
2kreached
7answers
0questions
Github Skills (16)
javas10
swt10
ui-design10
java10
platform-independent9
multiplatform9
debug9
platform-agnostic9
cross-platform9
ecore6
xtext6
eclipse6
emf6
xcore6
string-template6
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
eclipse-platform/eclipse.platform.swt
Mar 2020 - Dec 2020
Eclipse SWT
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 review, 6 commits, 1 comment in 9 months
Contributions summary:Karsten's contributions primarily focus on bug fixes and code improvements within the Eclipse SWT framework. They addressed issues by correcting typos, optimizing code, and adding checks to prevent disposal-related errors. The user demonstrated a good understanding of the SWT codebase, specifically concerning layout management, event handling, and cross-platform compatibility. The commits also include fixing issues that improved SWT's functionality for Tree and CTabFolder widgets.
swtjavaeclipsecross-platform-guiui
operaton/operaton
Oct 2024 - Apr 2025
BPMN-Process automation for everyone
Contributions:171 reviews, 467 PRs, 712 pushes in 5 months
bpmnjavaworkflow-engine
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