About Marcel Cremer

Posted on January 22, 2023

4 minutes  • 824 words  • Other languages:  Deutsch

Who’s Marcel Cremer?

You’ve probably read so many “about me”-pages, that you cannot even count them and all sound the same. I’ll try not to bore you, so here’s Marcel Cremer in 10 phrases:

• Programmer and CTO
• Lean Development Enthusiast
• Loves pragmatic sustainability
• Computer Games
• Gravel Biker
• Boulderer
• Hobby Chef
• Dog Lover (allergic to cats)
• Entrepreneurship
• Curious about the world

Yip, that’s me. If you want to know more about Marcel Cremer, here’s some Q&A.

Marcel, how would you describe your job to a child?

In a nutshell, I’d say that I try to rescue our world with a computer. Okay, you’re probably thinking, how’s that even possible?

Well, every car, every airplane, everything with a combustion engine spits out plenty of CO2 and other harming gases, that are slowly destroying our planet. If we don’t close our eyes about our sorroundings, we can already feel the result of our actions as humans today. 20°C at new years eve in germany. Burning Forests all over the world. A less powerful Jetstream. All of these events are results of the global warming of the planet. The outcome will be a disaster and we have to do something about it. Everybody has to help with their skills and, well, my primary skills are tech and people. That’s why we’re trying to reduce traffic emissions with MOBIKO, a flexible mobility budget and nudge people into using more sustainable mobility.

What part of your job brings you the most joy?

My job is great, because I’m working with a talented and motivated team who tries to shape a better, more sustainable future for everybody. To achieve this, I work basically on three important topics:

1. Bringing people together

Working as a team can sometimes be hard. Each and everybody has a very individual skillset, that can contribute to achieve something big. However, people sometimes don’t feel like they have the power or the responsibility to utilize their personal strengths. This is where I try to step in and try to empower people to become the best version of themselves. I support them by trying to give them freedom and responsibilities on one hand, and setting proper boundaries on the other hand.

2. Enhancing products

Building a product that people want to use can be challenging. On one hand, there are many requirements and ideas, that can eventually never be fulfilled, because there are just not enough resources to implement all of them. On the other hand, you always want to make people happy by prodiving as much value as possible to them. The one big thing that I took from my time as a consultant is to always dig deep into the requirements people are asking me to fulfill. Most of the time, there’s one specific thing, that can already help them and that is very cheap to create. Finding out, what it is, is one of my passions, because if you find it, you can make people very happy with very little effort.

3. Coding

Even now that I’m in a management position, I like to code. Not only because it’s a good habit to keep up with what’s going on in the tech market, but also because I like to solve riddles and elegance. Developers that became “famous” for their contribution to the dev-sector like Uncle Bob, Martin Fowler, Kent C. Dodds or David Heinemeier Hansson all have some very unique views and a special thinking about tackling tasks that is very inspiring to me.

What advice would you give to someone just starting in your industry?

Try to find something that you like, work with passion and learn everyday. That way you’ll never have problems in your career.

When I was in the equivalent of an highschool, I decided that I will probably never do an academic career. The missing link to real problems and the destructive culture on how to treat mistakes made me angry all the time. This was the reason, why I chose to burn the bridges behind me, leave the school with “only” a “Realschulabschluss” (equiv. GCSE) and start an apprenticeship as a software developer. From the first day, I loved what I did and put all my passion into it. Up until today, I learned

• how to code
• how to write better code (clean code, software architecture, patterns, …)
• DevOps and Infrastructure
• how to avoid staying in my comfort zone
• work with people and in a team
• how to grow as a person

And I’m definitely still learning. Everyday, I try to become a better version of myself and also how to utilize this in my work. I’m totally convinced, that this is the reason why I got where I currently am and that this is also possible for you.

If you want to know more, just drop me a message. You might also meet me in one of the cologne area MeetUps or at one of my talks .