Timotheus Bachinger-Collinger

Hi Timi, thanks for your time.

How did you come to Checkmk?

I already knew one of the developers (Simon) through a mutual friend, so I had the opportunity to get detailed information first-hand. Since Simon was genuinely enthusiastic about his work and his descriptions matched exactly what I had in mind, I didn’t hesitate long and sent in my application.

What is your role at Checkmk?

I’m a software developer and tech lead in the CI team. I mainly implement everything in the areas of CI/build/testing and packaging.

Which tools/technology stacks do you work with?

Primarily, we use Python as our programming language. Occasionally, we also use shell scripting with Bash.

Each developer is free to choose their IDE – for example, VIM is very popular and becomes very powerful for us with the right configuration. But when I feel like using a “real” IDE again, I usually go with IntelliJ and a Python plugin.

Specifically, in our CI team and the broader Checkmk project, we use Bazel as our build tool. We’re also in frequent contact with upstream: through GitHub pull requests, we’ve already contributed several bug fixes and features to various Bazel projects. Besides Bazel, Kubernetes and of course Docker play a major role for us.

What does your workday look like?

Since we’re organized using Scrum, tasks are clear and well-structured.

Our daily standups take place at 10 a.m. – a good time to react to changing priorities. Before and after that, it’s all about execution.

At Checkmk, it’s important to me that...

...enthusiastic and motivated people work together on a great product and that we can learn a lot from each other! Especially the interaction with other open-source projects offers great opportunities to look beyond the horizon.

The best confirmation for me is when...

...we as the CI team can provide fast and reliable tooling for our dev team.

Fun Facts?

I can't play football, but I also can’t draw!

My first name “Timotheus” comes from Greek (Τιμόθεος) and means “honoring God.” Speaking of Greece – in 2011, I got lost in Athens and accidentally ended up in the demonstrations against the German austerity policy.