Eckart is available for hire

Eckart Schütz

Verified Expert in Engineering

Software Developer

Larnaca, Cyprus

Toptal member since March 26, 2018

Expertise

Linux IPC Back-end Distributed Systems Multithreading Systems Engineering Software Engineering VoIP API Design Embedded Software Fintech UDP Cryptocurrency C++Software Architecture Debugging Integrated Circuits Trading Software

Bio

Eckart has 25 years of experience developing back-end software with C++ in the telecommunications and financial services industries. His expertise ranges from embedded systems to big data platforms and from libraries to software architecture.

Portfolio

Freelance

Technical Design, Technical Documentation, Web Architecture, Architecture...

Infostream

Project Management, Web, Hiring

Interactive Data Managed Solutions | Intercontinental Exchange

Technical Design, Web Architecture, Architecture, Fintech...

Experience

Distributed Systems - 20 years Scrum - 12 years Software Architecture - 11 years High-performance Computing (HPC) - 7 years ITIL - 7 years Big Data - 7 years Embedded Linux - 7 years C++17 - 4 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, Linux, Automated Testing

The most amazing...

...thing I've done was a product that I developed with five colleagues at CeBIT 1998 that allowed visitors to make live phone calls over the internet.

Work Experience

Software Architect

2018 - PRESENT

Freelance

Contributed to transforming a VoIP PBX written in C from a proprietary platform to embedded Linux using C++ and C, including refactoring, code reviews, and coaching.
Developed an object-oriented library, realizing an event-driven architecture.
Constructed the startup logic of the multitier PBX software.
Developed the X.509 certificate-based license handling.
Architected a trading client for an AI-based trading system.
Coached the team lead of a software engineering team.
Coded a BEP-20 token that successfully passed an external security audit.
Developed a protocol stack component for the local bus of a modular microcontroller system.

Technologies: Technical Design, Technical Documentation, Web Architecture, Architecture, Fintech, Coaching, Technical Leadership, Continuous Integration (CI), Finance, Kernel, Databases, Embedded Development, HTML5, Web, OpenSSL, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Asynchronous Development, X.509 Certificates, IPv6, IPv4, Design Patterns, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), WebRTC, API Design, Documentation, CI/CD Pipelines, APIs, POSIX, Real-time Systems, Realtime, Back-end, PostgreSQL, PKI, Software Design, TCP/IP, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), State Machines, Financial Market Data, Telephony, Remote Work, Low-latency Software, Low Latency, Parallel Programming, Embedded Systems, HTML, Valgrind, Asynchronous Programming, Embedded C++, Python, Embedded Software, Sockets, Linux IPC, GitLab, Trading, Sparx Enterprise Architecture, Encryption, Financial Products, Event-driven Programming, Standard Template Library (STL), Socket Communication, Network Programming, Data Structures, Multithreading, UML, Angular, JavaScript 6, SQL, REST APIs, CMake, Linux, Distributed Programming, Socket Programming, Concurrent Programming, Agile Software Development, C++, Algorithms, Software Architecture, YouTrack, Git, Distributed Systems, Public-key Cryptography, Scrum, UML 2, Object-oriented Design (OOD), Embedded Linux, C, Yocto, Python 3, C++17, Networking, Design Principles, Debugging, HTTP, X.509, HTTPS, Microcontroller Programming, Applied Cryptography, CSS, Automated Testing, Smart Contracts, Non-blocking I/O, Code Review, Source Code Review, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Web Development, Mentorship & Coaching, Infrastructure, Server Infrastructure, Ubuntu Linux, Industrial Automation, Open Office, LibreOffice, Ubuntu, Shell Scripting, Data Analysis, Agile, Google Test, Remix IDE, Solidity, MetaMask, GitLab CI/CD, Solution Architecture, Solution Design, Digital Certificates, Capital Markets, Technical Writing, BNB Smart Chain, Back-end Performance, Stock Exchange, Linux Kernel, Crypto, Cryptocoin Mining, Data-level Security, Systems Engineering, System Administration, Software Engineering, Quantitative Analysis, Back-end Development, Software Design Patterns

Project Manager (Freelance)

2017 - 2018

Infostream

Oversaw and led the development of a fintech product.
Led and managed a team of seven software developers.
Worked on a project with a budget of $1.1 million.

Technologies: Project Management, Web, Hiring

Senior Software Engineer

2010 - 2017

Interactive Data Managed Solutions | Intercontinental Exchange

Acted as a member of the platform software architecture team of a financial data platform with more than 3,000 servers.
Developed a C++ library with functionality comparable to Apache Kafka for price data streams received from stock exchanges, with lower CPU and network bandwidth usage than Kafka.
Created the push subscriptions feature of the proprietary DBMS of the company's financial data platform with immediate data update forwarding on a user-defined data set with 25,000,000 subscriptions and 30,000 messages per second per production node.
Built low-memory-footprint data structures, e.g., a vector class.
Wrote scripts to distribute metadata from a central database to other platform back ends and developed filters for price data streams.
Developed HTML interfaces for live data inspection back ends; used hyperlinking to ease incident handling.
Developed a component for the financial data platform similar to a Hadoop Namenode with reduced logic.

Technologies: Technical Design, Web Architecture, Architecture, Fintech, Template Metaprogramming, MySQL, Finance, Microservices Architecture, Databases, C++14, Scrum, HTML5, Web, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Asynchronous Development, IPv4, Confluence, Data Pipelines, API Design, CI/CD Pipelines, APIs, POSIX, Real-time Systems, Realtime, Back-end, Back-end Performance, Jira, Software Design, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), Parallel Programming, Asynchronous Programming, Embedded C++, Data Engineering, Python, Sockets, Linux IPC, High-performance Computing (HPC), Subversion (SVN), Low Memory Constraint Development, Financial Products, Event-driven Programming, Standard Template Library (STL), UDP, Network Programming, Data Structures, Multithreading, Oracle SQL, NoSQL, Git, SQL, Stock Exchange, Financial Market Data, ITIL, Optimization, Big Data, Distributed Systems, Distributed Programming, Socket Programming, Concurrent Programming, Agile Software Development, Algorithms, Express.js, Node.js, JSON, XML, HTML, Oracle, Socket Communication, Linux, TCP/IP, C++, Networking, Profiling, Design Principles, Debugging, HTTP, HTTPS, Non-blocking I/O, Web Development, Infrastructure, Server Infrastructure, Ubuntu Linux, Ubuntu, Shell Scripting, Agile, Cloud, Solution Design, Technical Writing, Data-level Security, Web Security, Scalability, Financial Data, Systems Engineering, System Administration, Software Engineering, Back-end Development, Back-end Architecture, Software Design Patterns

Senior Software Engineer

2005 - 2009

Swyx Solutions AG

Initiated and developed the redesign of the SwyxWare VoIP server. Decoupled the components, rectified internal interfaces, made the core object-oriented. The redesign sped up further development by a factor of six.
Developed the resilience feature of the SwyxWare server.
Provided SNMP support for the SwyxWare server.
Created a Qt-based tool for an interactive log file analysis for the easier debugging of the asynchronous server—providing semantic filtering of log data and displaying extracted data in a tree view.
Introduced the concept of Lamport timestamps for the dissemination of user states in the distributed system and coached software engineers.

Technologies: Technical Design, Technical Documentation, Architecture, Coaching, Databases, Microsoft Visual Studio, Scrum, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Asynchronous Development, IPv4, Qt Creator, Design Patterns, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), API Design, Documentation, APIs, POSIX, Real-time Systems, Realtime, Back-end, Software Design, TCP/IP, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), Computer Telephony, State Machines, Telephony, Parallel Programming, SQL Server 2010, Sockets, Asynchronous Programming, Embedded C++, UML, Sparx Enterprise Architecture, Encryption, Event-driven Programming, Standard Template Library (STL), Network Programming, Data Structures, Multithreading, Visual Studio, SQL Server 2000, Microsoft Project, Windows API, SQL, Qt 5, Distributed Systems, Distributed Programming, Socket Programming, Concurrent Programming, Agile Software Development, Microsoft Visual C++, Software Architecture, Qt, SMTP, SNMP, Socket Communication, Microsoft SQL Server, VoIP, C++, Networking, Design Principles, Debugging, UI Programming, Graphical User Interface (GUI), Non-blocking I/O, Desktop App Development, Mentorship & Coaching, Agile, Solution Architecture, Solution Design, Technical Writing, Back-end Performance, Systems Engineering, System Administration, Software Engineering, Back-end Development, Back-end Architecture, Software Design Patterns

Senior Software Engineer

2001 - 2005

Avaya-Tenovis GmbH & Co. KG

Developed an interface to the I55 PBX's internal communication bus.
Made significant contributions to the software architecture in a project aiming at converting the I55 into a VoIP-based system.
Specified the protocol between the call control and one of the connector modules.
Developed the call control and the ISDN side of a VoIP-ISDN gateway based on embedded Linux.
Created a UDP-based logging library for the embedded system allowing remote control over the log levels. Kernel module logging was supported.
Gave presentations to an internal technical audience.

Technologies: Technical Design, Technical Documentation, Architecture, Embedded Development, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Asynchronous Development, SHA, IPv4, Design Patterns, IBM Rational ClearCase, IBM Rational ClearQuest, API Design, Documentation, APIs, POSIX, Real-time Systems, Realtime, Back-end, Software Design, TCP/IP, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), State Machines, Telephony, Model-driven Engineering (MDE), Low Latency, Low Memory Constraint Development, Parallel Programming, Embedded Systems, Asynchronous Programming, Embedded C++, Embedded Software, Sockets, Linux IPC, CORBA, Encryption, IBM Rational Rose, Event-driven Programming, Standard Template Library (STL), Network Programming, Data Structures, Multithreading, Cross-platform, Distributed Systems, Distributed Programming, Socket Programming, Concurrent Programming, Agile Software Development, Software Architecture, UML, Socket Communication, Embedded Linux, Linux, VoIP, C++, Networking, Design Principles, Debugging, Non-blocking I/O, Infrastructure, Server Infrastructure, Wireless Protocols, Solution Architecture, Solution Design, Technical Writing, Back-end Performance, Operating Systems, Systems Engineering, System Administration, Software Engineering, Back-end Development, Back-end Architecture, Software Design Patterns

Senior Software Engineer

2000 - 2001

Tedas AG

Developed the call control and the ISDN side of a VoIP-ISDN gateway for an embedded VoIP PBX.
Constructed an echo canceller based on an adaptive filter.
Created a thin operating system abstraction layer for Linux and Windows NT.
Developed a highly optimized logging library with only a small impact on the timings of the software, even on embedded systems.

Technologies: Technical Design, Architecture, Embedded Development, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Asynchronous Development, SHA, IPv4, API Design, Documentation, APIs, POSIX, Real-time Systems, Realtime, Back-end, Software Design, TCP/IP, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), State Machines, Telephony, Parallel Programming, Sockets, Asynchronous Programming, Embedded C++, Digital Signal Processing, Public-key Cryptography, Embedded Software, Linux IPC, Signal Processing, Encryption, Event-driven Programming, Network Programming, Data Structures, Multithreading, Cross-platform, Distributed Systems, Distributed Programming, Socket Programming, Concurrent Programming, Agile Software Development, H.323, Socket Communication, Embedded Linux, Linux, Windows, VoIP, C++, Networking, Design Principles, Debugging, Non-blocking I/O, Agile, Solution Design, Back-end Performance, Operating Systems, Systems Engineering, System Administration, Software Engineering, Back-end Development, Software Design Patterns

Senior Software Engineer

1995 - 2000

Digi International AG | ITK Telekommunikation AG

Developed significant parts of the VoIP-ISDN gateway NetBlazer 8500, like the call control's state machine, a Mealy machine with 60+ states and 50+ events.
Integrated third-party DSP software, audio codecs and echo canceller, into NetBlazer 8500.
Made a TSP, a Microsoft telephony service provider, for the ITK ISDN cards.
Built a DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency) tones detector.
Created an object-oriented interface for the ITK ISDN cards.
Developed a Windows NT kernel-mode intermediate driver for ISDN cards.

Technologies: Technical Design, Architecture, Windows Kernel Drivers, Visual SourceSafe, Win32, Kernel, Web, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Asynchronous Development, H323, IPv4, API Design, Documentation, APIs, POSIX, Real-time Systems, Realtime, Back-end, Software Design, TCP/IP, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), State Machines, Telephony, Low-level Programming, Parallel Programming, Sockets, Asynchronous Programming, PKI, Embedded C++, SRTP, Public-key Cryptography, Linux IPC, AES, Encryption, Event-driven Programming, UDP, Socket Communication, Network Programming, Microsoft Visio, Windows API, Distributed Systems, Distributed Programming, Concurrent Programming, Agile Software Development, Algorithms, Software Architecture, Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) Library, Win32 API, TI DSP C2000, RTP, H.323, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), Unix, Linux, Windows, VoIP, C++, Networking, Design Principles, Debugging, HTTP, HTTPS, Applied Cryptography, Cryptographic Protocols, Non-blocking I/O, Agile, Solution Architecture, Solution Design, Technical Writing, Back-end Performance, Operating Systems, Systems Engineering, System Administration, Software Engineering, Back-end Development, Back-end Architecture, Software Design Patterns

Experience

Configuration of and Data Visualization for an Industrial 3D Laser Sensor

An app for the configuration of and data visualization for an industrial 3D laser sensor. The app uses the Chromium Embedded Framework, which is internally split into the front and back ends. The front end is based on Angular/WebGL/WebAssembly, and the back end is on C++. I was the main developer, except for the WebAssembly part. The biggest challenge was pushing up to 1GB of sensor data into a web-based front end.

Protocol Stack of Embedded System in Industrial Automation

A control unit comprising a stack of modules, each module having its own microcontroller and connected to a proprietary bus. I developed a part of the protocol stack for inter-module communication.

Financial Data Platform

I contributed to building a distributed, scalable, and reliable financial data platform containing data of millions of securities, including real-time prices and historical prices. It handles request rates comparable to those of Google's search engine. I was a member of the platform architecture team, developed the communication library to distribute price data streams among the back-end components, built several features of the core DBMS, like price subscriptions, and optimized run-time performance. On normal trading days, the DB handled 300,000 price updates per second.

Smart Contract | Crypto Token

https://bscscan.com/address/0xd007f5ad8112e2d0b486ce3085a491176c2bd0b9

A BEP-20 token for the Binance Smart Chain. The contract swaps transaction fees to BNB using PancakeSwap. The token's contract successfully passed an external security audit: Github.com/TechRate/Smart-Contract-Audits/blob/main/August/Pomsky.pdf. I implemented and tested the token's contract and the contract for presales and assisted the front-end developer in integrating web3.js.

Enterprise VoIP Telephony System

I contributed to the transformation of a VoIP PBX written in C from a proprietary platform to embedded Linux using C++/C. I also developed an object-oriented library for the event-driven architecture, developed the startup logic of the multi-tier PBX software, built features like the license handling (based on X.509 certificates), wrote Yocto recipes, reviewed code, coached, refactored (especially regarding multi-threading, IPC, and performance), tested, debugged, and wrote documentation.

VoIP Server

I worked on a feature-rich VoIP enterprise telephony solution based on Windows. I developed several features, like the resilience feature, SNMP, SMTP, and did a redesign of the server's core software.

Enterprise PBX

For a scalable, modular, distributed enterprise telephony system consisting of 50 to 10,000+ phones, we changed the proprietary platform to a Linux/Intel platform. I defined interfaces, contributed to the system architecture, and developed several components.

VoIP PBX

I contributed to the development of a software VoIP enterprise telephony solution. I built the ISDN side of a VoIP gateway on embedded Linux, the remote logging infrastructure, an echo canceler based on an adaptive filter, and a thin OS abstraction layer.

NetBlazer 8500

NetBlazer 8500 is a carrier-grade 120 channel remote access server and VoIP-ISDN gateway with DSPs for audio compression and echo canceling. The only product at CeBIT 1998 that allowed users to make live phone calls over the internet. I developed the ISDN side of the gateway and parts of the call control, tested the third-party DSP software, and designed the architecture.

Web App

I built a web app using Angular 5, Node.js, Express.js, PostgreSQL, and a REST API.

Trading Client

A machine learning ML-based trading system. I developed a trading client that connects to the trading platform and uses artificial intelligence (AI) for making trading decisions.

Drop Catching

I have developed a system to register (catch) domains that have just been released (dropped) by the registry. I modified the low latency software to adjust for the new regulations of the registry.

Education

2015 - 2016

Master's Degree in Executive Master of Business Administration, General Management

IE Business School - Madrid, Spain

1989 - 1994

Master's Degree in Computer Science (Robotics, Signal Processing, AI, Design of Integrated Circuits, Databases) GPA 3.7

Technical University Brunswick - Brunswick, Germany

Certifications

JULY 2019 - PRESENT

Professional Scrum Master I

Scrum.org

MARCH 2017 - APRIL 2022

PRINCE2 Practitioner

APMG International

Skills

Libraries/APIs

Sockets, POSIX, REST APIs, Standard Template Library (STL), OpenSSL, Node.js, AES, TensorFlow, WebRTC, Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) Library, Windows API, Win32 API, Web3.js, CCXT, Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), WebGL

Tools

Git, IBM Rational Rose, Valgrind, CMake, Subversion (SVN), IBM Rational ClearCase, GCC, Microsoft PowerPoint, LibreOffice, Jira, Confluence, GNU Debugger (GDB), Qt Creator, Google Hangouts, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Slides, Open Office, Slack, Microsoft Visio, Visual Studio, GitLab, YouTrack, Microsoft Project, IBM Rational ClearQuest, Visual SourceSafe, TFS, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Visual C++, MetaMask, Remix IDE, Eclipse IDE, GitLab CI/CD, Gprof, AWS IAM

Languages

C++, C++17, Embedded C++, Embedded C, C++14, C++11, C, Solidity, UML, Python 3, Python, SQL, JavaScript 6, UML 2, TypeScript, HTML5, Assembler x86, XML, HTML, JavaScript, CSS3, CSS, x64 Assembly

Paradigms

Asynchronous Programming, Parallel Programming, Real-time Systems, Web Architecture, Concurrent Programming, Scrum, Socket Programming, High-performance Computing (HPC), Model-driven Engineering (MDE), Event-driven Architecture, Asynchronous Development, PRINCE2, Object-oriented Design (OOD), Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Distributed Programming, Event-driven Programming, Agile Software Development, Automated Testing, Unit Testing, Agile, Microservices Architecture, ITIL, Template Metaprogramming, Continuous Integration (CI), Cross-platform, Design Patterns, Desktop App Development, Management, Kanban, Back-end Architecture, DevOps, Test-driven Development (TDD), Quantitative Research, Web Application Architecture

Platforms

Blockchain, Software Design Patterns, Linux, Embedded Linux, Unix, Windows, Ubuntu, Web, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Apache Kafka, Kernel, Win32, Oracle, Ubuntu Linux, Ethereum, AWS Lambda

Industry Expertise

Project Management, Marketing, Trading Systems

Frameworks

Qt, Realtime, Express.js, Qt 5, Angular, Google Test, Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF)

Storage

MySQL, PostgreSQL, NoSQL, JSON, Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server 2010, Data Pipelines, Databases, SQL Server 2000, Oracle SQL, MongoDB

Other

Optimization, Scrum Master, Linux IPC, Financial Market Data, Embedded Software, API Design, APIs, Embedded Development, Coaching, Executive Coaching, Fintech, Architecture, Technical Documentation, Technical Design, Back-end, Software Design, Back-end Performance, Distributed Systems, TCP/IP, UDP, Multithreading, Low Latency, Software Architecture, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), VoIP, Data Structures, Cryptocurrency, Low Memory Constraint Development, Low-latency Software, Leadership, Remote Work, Low-level Programming, Socket Communication, State Machines, Telephony, Computer Telephony, Network Programming, Networking, Design Principles, Applied Cryptography, Smart Contracts, Non-blocking I/O, Infrastructure, Server Infrastructure, Solution Architecture, Solution Design, Digital Certificates, Scalability, Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, Real-time Communication (RTC), Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), Embedded Systems, Public-key Cryptography, Image Processing, Data Engineering, Documentation, X.509 Certificates, Finance, Microsoft 365, Financial Products, Trading, Orderbook Engine, Stock Exchange, Cryptography, IPv6, Algorithms, Encryption, Signal Processing, Sparx Enterprise Architecture, SHA, IPv4, Windows Kernel Drivers, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Big Data, Technical Leadership, Digital Signal Processing, Ajax, RTP, SRTP, H323, SMTP, Profiling, Debugging, HTTP, HTTPS, X.509, UI Programming, Microcontroller Programming, Graphical User Interface (GUI), Mentorship & Coaching, Data Analysis, Operating Systems, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency, Decentralized Applications, ERC-20, Cryptocurrency Payments, Technical Writing, Ethereum Smart Contracts, Algorithmic Trading, Data Science, BNB Smart Chain, Crypto, Data-level Security, ERC-721, Data Analytics, Financial Data, Quantitative Analysis, Back-end Development, WebSockets, Angular 13, H.323, TI DSP C2000, Yocto, ISO 26262, Robotics, Integrated Circuits, Computer Vision, CI/CD Pipelines, Artificial Intelligence (AI), AUTOSAR, Bootloaders, Entrepreneurship, Negotiation, Strategy, CORBA, Cryptocurrency Wallets, PKI, SIP, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), SNMP, Cryptographic Protocols, Chromium, Industrial Automation, Firmware, Code Review, Source Code Review, Hiring, Web Development, Shell Scripting, Wireless Protocols, Cloud, Linux Kernel, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Data Cleaning, Data Transformation, Capital Markets, FX, AWS Cloud Architecture, Machine Learning, Cryptocoin Mining, Web Security, Server Security, IT Security, Linux Administration, Full-stack, Web Applications, Mathematics, System Administration, IPC, JSONRPC, WebAssembly (Wasm)

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