Michael Baentsch
Security Consultant And Software Engineer at Freelance
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolMichael Baentsch is a security consultant and software engineer based in Zurich with over two decades of experience spanning research, product management, and hands-on engineering in embedded and online security. He blends a PhD-level technical background with an MBA-informed commercial sense, routinely taking projects from research prototypes to marketable, customer-focused solutions. At IBM he led teams and product efforts for smartcard and banking security, and today he consults and codes—contributing to high-profile open-source crypto projects like OpenSSL and the post-quantum liboqs where he optimized CPU-feature use for cryptographic performance. His work pairs scientist-style innovation with pragmatic delivery, often producing novel, first-of-a-kind systems for demanding environments. Colleagues describe him as someone who still “values every bit,” reflecting deep low-level expertise alongside strategic product instincts.
6 years of coding experience
23 years of employment as a software developer
PhD, Computer Science, PhD, Computer Science at University of KaiserslauternMBA, Marketing and Strategy Development, MBA, Marketing and Strategy Development at Strathclyde University
German, English
Stackoverflow
1reputation
55reached
0answers
1question
Github Skills (14)
c1710
ss10
sslv310
ssl10
c1110
openssl10
cryptography10
testing10
encryption9
avx9
arm8
decryption8
neon8
python6
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
open-quantum-safe/liboqs
Jan 2020 - Jan 2023
C library for prototyping and experimenting with quantum-resistant cryptography
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Security Engineer
Back-end Developer & Security EngineerContributions:1 release, 742 reviews, 107 commits in 3 years
Contributions summary:Michael primarily contributed to the development and optimization of CPU feature runtime flags support within the C library for post-quantum cryptography. The commits reveal efforts to integrate and utilize CPU features like AES, AVX, and NEON instructions for performance enhancements. This included modifications to both common utility functions and test files, indicating a focus on optimizing core cryptographic functionality for diverse hardware architectures.
post-quantumcryptographyexperimentingc-librarypublic-key-cryptography
openssl/openssl
Jan 2021 - Sep 2022
TLS/SSL and crypto library
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:485 reviews, 20 commits, 57 PRs in 1 year 8 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily contributed to the `openssl/openssl` repository, focusing on cryptographic and TLS/SSL library enhancements. Their work involved the addition of the `SSL_group_to_name()` function for retrieving TLS group names, including documentation and tests. They also updated the `SERVER_HELLO_MAX_LENGTH` constant based on RFC 8446 and made changes to support CMS sign/verify for provider-implemented PKEYs. The user made updates to testing code and added improvements to accommodate signature algorithms.
crypto-librarycryptographyssltlscrypto
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