In brief:
- How it felt to work at the heart of the myRIDE project
- What it means to be a Lead Software Architect at Zühlke
- Why Zühlke has everything Lead Software Architects need
Andres Konrad joined Zühlke in 2018 as a Professional Software Engineer, straight after achieving his master’s in computer science at the ETH. 'Zühlke was always on my radar – they were at careers fairs, and I liked talking to them and always thought they worked on inspiring projects. I was particularly interested in the Jass Challenge student hackathon they held with Monika Fasnacht. It left such a great impression on me that I knew that I wanted to apply. It even encouraged me to create similar hackathons further down the line.'
With his ambitious mindset and after delivering strong results, he was quickly promoted and is now Lead Software Architect. In this role, he wears three hats: leading the team of engineers on a project, developing software hands-on with the team, and making impactful decisions on how to build the software.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with such great people since I became part of the company around eight years ago. Each person is still a role model to me today and I’ve always looked up to them. It’s one of the reasons I’m still here. Now I have the chance to give back and try to be a role model myself, as a leader.”
The myRIDE project at Alliance SwissPass
Alliance SwissPass is revolutionising Switzerland’s transportation system and simplifying travel fares for around 250 transport companies and 20 fare communities, including trains, buses, trams, and boats.
'The overall goal was to try and make accessing Swiss transport easier for the whole of Switzerland. It’s been a highly complicated project,' explains Andres, 'because we wanted to simplify so many different ticket types into just one tariff, while making sure that tariff was adaptable and offered similar prices to people living in Switzerland.
My first step was to set up the team. We had a lot of interactions with stakeholders from Alliance SwissPass and the development teams at SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) to understand how to integrate into their system. We were able to get a working pilot in place with beta testers at the beginning of 2024. The end goal is to have the system publicly available by 2027, so that all the different transport companies can integrate their apps and everyone in Switzerland can use this new tariff system.'
Andres is proud to be part of the project:
“I’m happy to be at the table, influencing with my know-how and inputs. We hope that most of Switzerland, along with lots of tourists, will be positively impacted by the solution we’ve built and it makes me proud to play a small but essential part in it.”
The scale of the project has been challenging, as well as the political implications and ensuring anonymity of all data. Andres credits the different teams and stakeholders with great collaboration skills. 'As a service company, we always try to fit in with our clients as quickly as possible. We integrate as team members, so we’re not even seen as external people anymore. They can see you speak their language, and it makes it easy to build trust too.'
What it’s like working as a Lead Software Architect at Zühlke?
With us, you’ll find a collaborative team of Software Architects. 'It’s such a supportive place to work,' says Andres. 'It’s one of the reasons why I'm still here, because I work with so many great people. They are role models for me and they constantly challenge me to improve myself as well.'
“As Lead Software Architect, I’m usually the technical leader on a project and I’m often included earlier than other team members when a new project begins. Once it has started, I’ll start to work closely with the client and I’m often the single point of contact for all technical questions. It’s my job to foster a productive environment for the developers and ensure that we can deliver what’s needed. I’m also here to challenge the vision and the timeline from the client when it’s required. From time to time, I support in bids, producing an architectural approach for a new project and leading the cost estimation. It’s a role that comes with a lot of responsibility and ownership. You need to be a good communicator and able to bring people together, to work effectively.”
How we empower continuous learning in software engineering
And it doesn’t end there, Andres continues, 'Once you have mastered something, you might ask yourself how you can give back to the community and share your gained knowledge. You could even run a session yourself at one of our in-house camps, courses or conferences.'
