Lukas Kesch

CTO and Entrepreneur

I am the CTO of the German EduTech Startup SchulLV. On nights and weekends, I hack on various side projects to sharpen my saw and as a testground for new technology.

When I am not in front of my MacBook, I am exercising (Gym, Running, Biking, Skiing, Swimming), reading, or with my girlfriend, friends, or family.

Picture of Lukas Kesch

My Endeavors

SchulLV

SchulLV is the leading online learning platform in Germany for students to study for their exams and for teachers to create new learning materials. We offer many subjects (Maths, German, English, Biology, ...) with original graduation exams for nearly all German states and digital schoolbooks.

As CTO I am leading the development of the platform (website, mobile app, and backend) and the infrastructure. The tech stack includes Next.js (React), Expo (React Native), Spring Boot (Java), MySQL, AWS, ...

Life Journal

LifeJournal.io is a journal app that lets you record and have an overview of your time spend. You can record or log any activity (learning, coding, exercise, ...) you want to keep track of.

I am developing this open source app to track my exercise, coding, and learning habits. The Web App is built with Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and MySQL. I am self-hosting the app on my own server with a Cloudflare proxy in front. You can find it on my GitHub.

Self Hosting

This site and all my other personal projects run on my Ubuntu server in a datacenter in Germany. In the time of AWS, it is a great way to stay grounded in the basics.

I am running: Nginx as a reverse proxy with Certbot for my side projects, MySQL as my go to database, Docker for my Next.js apps, WireGuard as my VPN with AdGuard as my DNS Server, and some cron scripts for backups, monitoring, and maintenance.

Maybe in the future I will set up a server on my own hardware in my home or colocate it in a datacenter.

University

I studied Computer Science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. I finished my Bachelor study with a GPA of 3.7. My focus was on Algorithms, Software Engineering, and Linear Algebra.

I developed a lot of book smartness so to speak but most of our classes lacked the practical aspect. In the evenings and weekends, I was already coding and building my own projects eager to apply my knowledge.

During my time in university I also began working as a Student Software Engineer at SchulLV and got my first experience working on a large scale web application in a team.

High School

I graduated from the Hans-Grüninger-Gymnasium (German high school) with the highest GPA in my class of 4.0. I selected my classes based on my deep interest in the STEM subjects: Computer Science, Mathmatics, Physics, and Chemistry.

I received multiple awards and scholarships: Ferry-Porsche Preis, Physik-Preis, Deutschlandstipendium

I spent my Junior year as an Exchange Student in the USA at the Jackboro High School. I had a great time and tried out practically all sports they offered: Football, Cross Country, Powerlifting, Track & Field, and Baseball

Bundeswettbewerb Informatik

Two years in a row I participated in the highest German Informatics Competition: The Bundeswettbewerb Informatik. I passed all rounds and was one of the 23 finalists from over 2000 participants.

This victory qualified me to take part in the training for the german national team at the International Olympiad in Informatics. The training was intense and we practiced a lot of algorithmic problems and programming exercises.

My Engineering Skills

Frontend

My go to stack for the frontend is React, Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. For Mobile I use React Native with Expo.

I have a deep understanding of the React principles, Hooks, when and why React re-renders. With Next.js I have both deployed the pages and app router and used the static generation and server side rendering.

I keep a close eye on the react ecosystem and emerging trends.

Backend

Depending on the situation my go to solution are either Next.js Server Actions or a full fleshed Spring Boot application which serves as a REST API. I have used both extensively and learned their strengths and weaknesses.

In most cases I prefer SQL Databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL over NoSQL databases like MongoDB. I have MySQL database for virtually all my projects and over time I became proficient in crafting queries and modeling the database schema.

Infrastructure

I always found it fascinating how and on what the software we build is deployed. I can call AWS my home and have a deep understanding of over a dozen AWS services including EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, CloudFront, Route 53, and many more.

As a weekend getaway I also like to tinker with my own server. This is a great way to keep myself sharp on the basics. I run a SSL secured reverse proxy, MySQL database, VPN with a custom DNS Server, cron scripts for backups, monitoring, and maintenance and many more.

DevOps

I love to optimize my development workflow and tools I use. It all started when I learned about Vim Motions and from there I just kept going. Some things as basic as reading the git reference manual. Others include having a custom keyboard layout to maximise code typing speed.

These are the tools I use to make my development workflow more efficient: Neovim, Tmux, Git, Karabiner, Ripgrep, and more.

Scripting

I like to hack a script together for one of tasks such as migrations or to automating recurring tasks.

For simple tasks I stick with basic bash scripting with core utils sprinkled in. For more complex tasks I choose Node.js. Its fast to write and has a vast package ecosystem.

Reaching out

Feel free to write me an email at [email protected]