Volker Braun
CTO at Real Life Interaction GmbH (talque.com)
Berlin, Germany
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolVolker Braun is a technology leader and CTO based in Berlin with 16 years of experience bridging deep academic research and hands-on software engineering. Trained as a theoretical physicist (PhD, Humboldt-Universität) and seasoned by postdoctoral roles at institutions like Oxford and UPenn, he brings rigorous problem-solving and systems thinking to product and platform architecture. At Real Life Interaction (talque.com) he leads engineering and product delivery while contributing to open-source projects—improving test coverage for the Python-based Buildbot CI and adding PSD smart-object parsing to psd-tools—demonstrating attention to reliability and edge-case data handling. His background in research-driven code and careful test automation means he favors robust, well-tested systems that survive real-world encoding and file-format complexities.
16 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
MA, Theoretical Physics, MA, Theoretical Physics at The University of Texas at AustinPhD, Theoretical Physics, PhD, Theoretical Physics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
English, German, French
Stackoverflow
1,899reputation
895kreached
37answers
0questions
gtk
top-5%
pycharm
top-5%
Github Skills (24)
python10
utf10
testing10
file-parsing10
file-format10
parsing10
file-parser10
data-extraction10
test-automation10
api-design9
continuous-integration9
io9
cil9
struct9
gtk9
Programming languages (18)
Github contributions (5)
psd-tools/psd-tools
Jan 2015 - Jan 2015
Python package for reading Adobe Photoshop PSD files
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:9 commits, 1 PR, 6 comments in 1 day
Contributions summary:Volker primarily contributed to the `psd-tools` Python package by implementing features related to parsing and extracting data from Adobe Photoshop PSD files, specifically focusing on embedded linked layers (smart objects). They added functionality to decode linked layer metadata, extract file content, and interact with the embedded data, with several commits focused on accurately interpreting the structure of linked layer data within the PSD file format. The user also improved the existing API for accessing and manipulating the extracted data.
pythonadobeextendscriptpsdwoff2
buildbot/buildbot
May 2019 - Jun 2019
Python-based continuous integration testing framework; your pull requests are more than welcome!
Role in this project:QA Engineer / Test Automation Engineer
QA Engineer / Test Automation EngineerContributions:4 commits, 3 PRs, 12 comments in 1 month
Contributions summary:Volker primarily focused on improving the testing coverage and quality of the Buildbot project. They added unit tests to validate UTF-8 handling in the worker process and log file watchers, addressing potential issues with invalid character encoding. They refactored test code to use temporary files for log file operations, and also created new tests to verify the captured content of log files. These changes aim to increase the robustness and reliability of the Buildbot system.
pythontesting-frameworktestingcontinuouspull-requests
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