Michael Jastram
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Toptal member since September 7, 2021
Michael is a systems architect and product manager with a focus on model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and an entrepreneurial mindset—doing what needs to be done. Thanks to a broad engineering background, Michael understands the interplay between mechanics, software, and other disciplines as well as the thread from high-level stakeholder need, down to the code level. Michael is also keenly aware of the real-world needs of the product lifecycle, product lines, production, and compliance.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Architecture
- Consulting
- Customer Success
- MBSE
- Product Management
- Requirements
- Software Architecture
- Systems Engineering
Work Experience
Head of Technology and Customer Success | Software and Systems Architect
Formal Mind GmbH
- Helped build a startup to develop Semiant, an AI-powered virtual quality assistant. I took on the role of CTO/head of technology and defined the architecture, set up operations, defined the product, developed the UI, and conducted conversations.
- Analyzed a customer's product development environment, helping them to integrate new tools into their IT environment, align with industry best practices, and translate their needs into tool configuration.
- Introduced model-based systems engineering according to ISO 15288. This included collaborating with stakeholders to refine and document the new development approach, training, and coaching.
- Served as a work package leader of a publicly funded project for Deutsche Bank, which included planning and coordinating the implementation of a toolchain for the European Train Control System (ETCS).
- Planned and managed the successful implementation of a software tool for requirements exchange. Today, the tool is widely used to supervise requirements exchanges in automotive and other industries.
- Oversaw the writing of a technical handbook for the tool Rodin. This project was commissioned by the University of Newcastle. The book production was completed on budget and on time.
- Created a new Eclipse (open-source) project, the Eclipse Requirements Modeling Framework (RMF). The resulting libraries are integrated into several commercial products.
Assistant Professor
FOM Hochschule
- Taught a course called Concepts of Procedural Programming.
- Created the class curriculum, managed the class itself, and built tutorials.
- Managed the students, including leading feedback sessions and issuing the final grades.
Research Assistant | Postdoc
Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf
- Wrote, in my efforts to obtain a doctorate, my thesis, The ProR Approach: Traceability of Requirements and System Descriptions, and graduated magna cum laude.
- Contributed to the research project called Deploy; the goal of the project was the application of formal modeling in industrial pilot projects.
- Taught classes that included lecturing about modeling and requirements engineering and supervising students in project work.
Senior Consultant | Software Division Manager
Hood Group
- Consulted and coached customers with respect to the use of processes and tools for requirements management.
- Created and built up the HOOD software division, a group of five software consultants and developers. The team was complemented on an as-needed basis by members of the consulting division and external freelancers.
- Developed various small software products; for instance, a specification generator based on DOORS.
Lead Software Engineer
Vitae Pharmaceuticals
- Designed the internal software platform, which was used by chemists to manage their molecular data and to process it further on our server farm.
- Implemented the user interface after eliciting input from the relevant stakeholders. This included a 3D subsystem based on OpenGL for visualizing molecules with stereographic glasses.
- Designed the architecture for distributed computation, which eventually took place on a cluster consisting of 196 CPUs. The database scaled without problems to a volume of 8 million molecules.
Senior Software Engineer | Senior Solutions Engineer
Netcentives, Inc.
- Contributed to the ongoing development of our core email delivery system. In particular, I executed the internationalization of our software, which was completed on budget and on time.
- Took on additional responsibility and refactored the software architecture for our customers’ profile pages, and acted as lead engineer in customer negotiations.
- Acted as a client architect and intermediary between customer teams and software development, which resulted in improved business processes and helped to manage the dramatic growth of customer teams.
Project History
Systems Engineering Trends – News Website for Systems Engineers
Created a weekly blog in 2015 in German to demonstrate my skills in systems engineering; as of August 2021, I've published over 300 posts.
Semiant — AI-based Virtual Quality Assistant
Led the build of Semiant: a solution for product development that reads specifications and uses AI to accelerate functional safety analysis with compliance and traceability automation.
Semiant runs on a Kubernetes cluster. The microservices are written in Python. The user interface is written in Vue.js.
ReqIF.academy
Created an online portal for the Requirements Interchange Format (ReqIF).
ReqIF.academy has thousands of registered users who take advantage of the training courses and other materials.
A key asset is the software ReqIF Studio, which is based on the Eclipse Requirements Modeling Framework (RMF), an open-source project that I co-founded.
ReqIF Studio is a commercial ReqIF editor that is used extensively in the industry for requirements exchanges and data exchange debugging.
Education
Doctorate Degree in Computer Science
Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf - Düsseldorf, Germany
Master's Degree in Ocean Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MIT - Cambridge, MA, United States
Diplom-Ingenieur Degree in Naval Architecture
University of Hamburg - Hamburg, Germany
Skills
Tools
IBM Rational, Confluence, Jira, Atlassian Suite
Paradigms
Agile Product Management
Other
Jama Connect, Full-stack, Architecture, Systems Engineering, Teaching, Research, Requirements, Software, Java, Software Design, Software Architecture, Consulting, Software Development, Customer Success, Web, Eclipse, Discovery, New Product Development, Thought Leadership, Solution Architecture, Programming, Product Management, Project Management, MBSE, Technical Writing, Writing & Editing, Engineering, Tech Sales, Business Strategy, Product Discovery, Product Strategy, Startups, Technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Molecular Biology, Pharmacy, Customer Acquisition, Team Leadership, New Products & Services, New Business Development, Design Sprints, Go-to-market Plans, Launch Strategy, Product Launch, CTO, Head of Product, Solution Design, Technical Product Management, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT)
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring