Hi there, I’m David. I’m flattered by your interest in getting to know me better.

What I do professionally

I work as a Data Engineer (specifically, as an Analytics Engineer) in Germany for the REWE Group, one of Europe’s largest retailers and operator of the pioneering¹ supermarket chain REWE. I hold a B.S. degree in computer science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, where I focussed on deep learning, computer vision, and 3D graphics. My technical expertise includes writing computer code in Python, modeling and transforming data with SQL, developing CI/CD pipelines as well as data pipelines, provisioning cloud infrastructure, and more.

I wrote my Bachelor’s thesis on geometric deep learning, a combination of machine learning and physics, where concepts such as symmetry (that is, invariance under some transformation) are leveraged to understand the different neural network architectures on a more fundamental level. Other physics-based concepts being used are equivariance—which gave rise to graph neural networks (GNNs)—and diffusion. GNNs are currently used, for example, in drug discovery, for recommender systems, or for the processing of point clouds, which naturally has many applications in computer vision. Incorporating the concept of diffusion further advanced GNNs. Diffusion is governed by partial differential equations. Outside of GNNs, in image analysis, diffusion (in form of the heat equation) is used to achieve Gaussian blur. Diffusion in form of the diffusion equation gave us DALL-E 2, Imagen, and Stable Diffusion. The diffusion equation describes the statistics of randomly moving particles and thereby introducing noise. Learning how to reverse the diffusion—that is, figuring out how to denoise the mess resulting from the diffusion—is the path that leads to a generative model.

As much as I love talking and learning about these topics, I’m currently not convinced that the academic environment is where I want to be. With so many great books, online lectures, and other resources available for free or at affordable prices, it simply made no sense for me to pursue a Master’s degree when I can get a better education by studying on my own. I don’t recognize the value of exchanging two years of my life just for some educational credentials alone.

In my current job, I sadly no longer work on computer vision or graphics problems, which I really liked. As of now, I’m focussing more on MLOps which means I automate the deployment of machine learning models (developed by my colleagues) to production systems. Instead of training the machine learning models myself, I now work at the intersection of machine learning, data engineering, and DevOps, which I also like a lot. And I can always talk with my colleagues about machine learning to get my fix 🙂

If any of that sounded interesting to you, get in touch with me! I would like to hear from you.

Who I am

Now here’s some more personal information about me.

I believe in lifelong learning

If done right, learning can be much fun. Think about it. As a toddler, literally everything is new to you and you’re learning every waking second of the day, be it to recognize faces or the cat or to acquire your mother’s tongue. And think about how happy toddlers are. Through school, however, many people unfortunately lose their love for learning because the teacher is either too fast or too slow for them and there’s also that hovering threat in form of a big test at the end of the school year. This goes against everything we know about the flow state. In contrast to that, learning at your own pace, with your own goals in mind, feels like play rather than like work. Take, for example, learning how to build a website like the one you’re currently reading. How satisfying is it to see the fruits of your work come to life?

As a machine learning enthusiast, I’m interested in getting computers to learn from observations, like toddlers do. More broadly, I’m also interested in how learning in general works, in how humans learn. To make it through university I had to re-learn how to learn, which is how I rediscovered the power of flashcards and the Zettelkasten method / evergreen note-writing.

I don’t like unnecessary complexity

I much prefer simplicity. Occam’s razor gives me the right of it. I try to express that in my writing too … by using simple everyday language rather than pretentious words as is often the case in academia. Not because my vocabulary is limited but because I want no reader to fall off the bandwagon. I want to communicate effectively, not to show off. Jargon has its place, certainly—to convey ideas efficiently. Some people say that studying medicine really only is learning the language of medicine, the jargon used to describe ideas (illnesses, in case of medicine). But jargon only works if everyone is on the same page and shares a common ground. If I throw around some machine learning keywords when you’re no machine learning engineer, you’re not going to understand me. More precisely, I will have failed in my attempt to communicate with you effectively. It’s not that you failed to understand my meaning, it’s that I failed in conveying my meaning. Many people, even smart ones—perhaps especially the “smart” ones—, get this backwards. It’s as though academics feel compelled to use pretentious words out of fear of not sounding academic enough. Also, jargon only works if everyone understands the idea behind the word. If I can’t explain it to you like to a five-year old, I don’t truly understand it. If I can’t explain it using simple words, I can perhaps fool laymen into thinking that I’m smart when in reality I’m only hiding my own lack of understanding behind fancy words. Complexity is poor thinking in disguise. This is why I prefer simplicity. Complexity is easy. Simplicity is hard.

My hobbies

Most of my hobbies revolve around some form of working on myself.

Reading

I like to read a lot, mainly biographies and non-fictional books covering topics like personal development, psychology, neuroscience, cosmology, entrepreneurship, etc. You can follow this link to see my favorite books.

I’m especially interested in mindfulness and philosophy, in particular the lectures of Alan Watts (Eastern philosophy) and Stoicism (Western philosophy). I know this might sound weird and boring at first, but really these teachings are very much applicable to our stressful modern lives. They help me to live more in the present moment instead of worrying about the future or clinging to the past, to overcome failures more easily (even get something positive out of them) and not waste energy on circumstances I cannot change.

Podcasts

I also listen to podcasts, for example, the Lex Fridman Podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, The Kevin Rose Show, or The Knowledge Project, to name but a few. Listening to great conversationalists helps me not only in learning about the topics discussed but also in learning to ask better questions and improve my communication skills. Here’s a more complete list of my podcast recommendations.

Making music

Never having played a musical instrument while growing up, I’m learning to play the piano as an adult, at least two hours every single day. This time with the piano is what currently makes me happiest.

Foreign languages

Learning foreign languages is another way how I like to spend my time. My native language is German. In addition to English, I taught myself to speak Swedish and am dabbling in learning Japanese. I do this just for fun, since I enjoy challenging myself. You can read some of my advice for learning foreign languages.

Physical exercise

Physical exercise is also an important part of my life, both for physical and for mental performance. Besides running, I enjoy practising Yoga. It’s a good balance for sitting in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day and helps with correcting my posture. Lately, I started getting into bouldering.

Other

Lastly, I’m a huge Game of Thrones nerd. Not only is it a fantastic show, but it also is intelligently written and contains many hidden psychological gems that may teach you one or two life lessons if you care to pay attention. I encourage you to convince yourself and watch a few of the videos analyzing the behavioral traits of some of the show’s most charismatic characters. Watch, for example, this and this video.

What I’m doing now

To see how I spend my time these days, check out my “now” page.

How to contact me

Thanks for checking out my website and making the effort to learn about me. If you want to get in touch with me, see your options on my contact page. Be well.