At gridX, we believe the people who make up our company are just as important as the technology that we create. That’s why we are starting a new series, “Meet the department”, to give you a closer look at the team members who are helping us push the energy transition forward.
To kick off this series, we asked Wolfgang Werner, gridX’s Team Lead Backend Development, to tell us more about his experience, his interests and what his job entails. Wolfgang has decades of experience in software engineering and a passion for solving complex problems at the intersection of humans and technology. From scaling distributed systems to fostering a culture of transparency, he shares insights into his journey, role and what makes working at gridX unique.
Meet Wolfgang, Team Lead Backend Development
1. Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you ended up at gridX?
I started coding at the age of 10 on Basic and Perl, and they scarred me for life. Still, they helped me get interested in coding and software development, so I kept at it through my teenage years and into young adulthood. I have now worked in this field for over 20 years – as a developer, consultant, architect, developer advocate and engineering manager, always switching between individual contributor and management roles. I’ve been in industries ranging from manufacturing and biotech to finance and e-commerce. I’ve worked with companies of all sizes, from pre-seed startups to large enterprises.
My fascination lies in socio-technical systems, where humans and software development intersect. This, specifically, feels aligned with gridX’s mission to make renewable energy accessible and affordable to everyone. During my initial interview, it quickly became clear that gridX and I clicked, and the rest is history.
2. What does your role as Team Lead Backend Development involve?
Our team builds and maintains the internal and external HTTP APIs that power our (and our customers’) user-facing applications. Right now, we’re slicing apart a legacy monolithic application while significantly scaling and optimizing it. System load in 2024 has grown by 400% and some endpoints handle over 50,000 requests per second — all while maintaining sub-100ms p99 latencies. Beyond the tech, we’re also evolving our organization and applying inverse Conway maneuvers to align our system and team structures.
3. What excites you most about working in backend development?
Providing an excellent developer experience for both internal and external API users is incredibly rewarding. I love having developers as customers.
I’m also passionate about thriving developer communities, elegant system design, event-driven architectures and strongly typed functional languages — though I don’t always get to use them as much as I’d like.
4. What makes working at gridX unique compared to your previous experiences?
Scaling distributed systems is hard. Scaling a company is even harder. I’ve seen companies fail at both. What sets gridX apart is its culture of transparency and solution-oriented thinking. We openly discuss what doesn’t work and focus on fixing issues rather than playing politics.
The breadth of our work is also remarkable — spanning IoT hardware, system-level programming, big data streaming, optimization problems, cloud applications and more. It never gets boring.
5. What technologies and tools do you and your team work with daily?
This is going to get a bit technical, but here we go:
- Languages & APIs: Go, OpenAPI, TypeSpec, HTTP APIs
- Infrastructure & Cloud: AWS (RDS PostgreSQL, Kinesis, Lambda, SQS, SNS), Kubernetes, Docker
- Monitoring & Observability: Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Loki, Tempo
- CI/CD & More: Python, TypeScript, automated deployment pipelines
6. As a team lead, how do you support and guide your team?
My job is to remove obstacles so my team can focus on making progress. This works because we invest time in building a shared mindset, vision and strategy. I also act as a sparring partner and rubber duck for design discussions and coding challenges.
7. What do you look for when hiring backend developers?
I obviously look for someone who is skilled and can take on the challenge (and thrill) of working in clean tech, but I also look for people who will complement our team and the company as a whole. Some of what I look for is:
- Flexibility: Programming languages and frameworks are tools, not religions. (Also, Vi > Emacs and Tabs > Spaces. 😉)
- Solution orientation: You focus on solutions, not just technologies.
- Smart, not clever: In production, the best code is boring code. Fancy, mind-bending solutions have their place, but not in critical systems.
- Likeability: We need to click and enjoy working together.
8. What do you enjoy outside of work?
Outside of work, I enjoy cycling, playing guitar and diving into modern dystopian sci-fi. I also juggle — literally — with a diabolo. Beyond my hobbies, I volunteer at Bellevue di Monaco’s Bicycle Workshop and mentor aspiring professionals at the Mentoring Club.
9. How does gridX’s culture support a healthy work-life balance?
We value flexibility and autonomy, allowing us to structure our work in a way that fits our lives. One piece of advice for aspiring backend developers? Get a mentor. 👆😏
At gridX, we’re always on the lookout for great people like Wolfgang — problem-solvers who love elegant systems and strong engineering cultures. If that sounds like you, check out our open positions!
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