Gerd Schmitt — Graduate Computer Scientist, Embedded Engineer Since 1990

Graduate Computer Scientist (FH) with focus on Technical Computer Science. More than 35 years in hardware-near embedded development — starting at Mercedes-Benz, today as an independent consultant.

What Shapes This Career

Embedded development is a profession in which experience can only be accumulated over decades. Whoever works in this discipline for three decades has seen failure modes that do not appear in textbooks — and has developed solutions that only emerged through many iterative steps. The career below is not meant as a CV obligation but as evidence that the technical substance rests on real practice.

Three properties run through every station: hardware-near programming, safety-critical applications, and the willingness to take on responsibility for complete solutions — not just individual modules.

Career

Focus Areas and Way of Working

My professional home is where hardware and software come together: engine controls, FPGA-based signal processing, real-time systems, fault-tolerant communication, encryption. In my work I combine circuit design and code, know the entire path from concept through prototype to series qualification — and can also take on projects that explicitly require taking over, documenting and further developing inherited code.

Three properties characterise my way of working:

End-to-end responsibility instead of hourly work

I take on tasks where the result is in the foreground, not the working time. That fits fixed-price contracts with firm delivery commitment — and clients who are looking for someone responsible, not for a coder taking instructions.

Hardware-near depth

Real-time requirements, bare-metal programming, FPGA verification, memory constraints — the tasks where many standard developers reach their limits are the field in which I enjoy working. My chainsaw engine controller for Stihl is an extreme example: bare-metal, no real-time operating system, with memory constraints at the limit.

Cross-industry understanding

An engine controller in a chainsaw follows the same physical principles as one in a car. A camera for person detection in a vehicle uses algorithms that also occur in medical technology. This transferability is a practical advantage — solutions proven in one industry can often be applied in another.

Special

Three aspects from my personal profile that occasionally become relevant in the embedded context:

Pilot licence

Pilot licence with CVFR rating and night-flight rating — for time reasons no longer actively practised, the licence was not renewed. From this pilot training, however, practical understanding of avionics and safety-critical flight systems remains — topics that occasionally appear at the edge of embedded projects. English aeronautical radio certificate BZF I.

International project experience

International project experience since 1990 across several EU countries, the USA and Japan — the first business contacts to these countries emerged during the Mercedes-Benz years, later continued in the freelance activity for automotive suppliers in those countries. Today's activity is predominantly remote, which makes client locations practically irrelevant.

Languages

German (native), English (business fluent, written and spoken), French (for written business correspondence, e. g. with French authorities), Finnish (under expansion — prospectively planned residence).

Personal Style and Values

Clear in negotiations, reliable in deliveries, precise in specifications — and honest in the assessment of own effort. Embedded projects often require someone who can judge what is not achievable in the requested time; clients to whom I say this early appreciate it more than agreeable promises.

On contested technical questions, I prefer the traceable argument over haste. In commercial negotiations, I keep agreed prices — and expect the same from the other side.