About

I am a backend developer at myposter in Munich, where I have worked since 2018 on the systems behind two print-on-demand brands. Most of what I do is Go and infrastructure: the semantic search service that replaced Algolia, the rendering pipeline that shows customers their design on a product, and the Terraform that provisions both shops.

I came to software from purchasing and warehouse work, which is probably why I care more about systems that keep running than about systems that are clever.

I am not looking to move. What has changed is what I want to spend attention on: less of the implementation itself, more of the decisions above it — architecture, where the seams between systems go, and which problems are worth solving at all.

Experience #

• Backend Developer · myposter GmbH, Munich December 2018 – present

  Backend and infrastructure work across two e-commerce brands. Built the Go search service that replaced Algolia with self-hosted semantic search over image embeddings. Own the preview rendering pipeline — Go, Rust and libvips services that render a customer's design onto the product they are buying. Maintain the Terraform modules and environments behind both shops, alongside feature work in the central PHP monolith.

• Before 2018 2014 – 2018

  Purchasing and warehouse roles at an electronics manufacturer near Munich.

Stack #

Day to day — Go and PHP.

For the rendering work — Rust.

Infrastructure — Terraform, AWS, Kubernetes, Helm, Docker, Linux, Bash.

Data and search — PostgreSQL and pgvector, Qdrant, Redis, image embeddings.

Used, but would not claim depth — Python, TypeScript.

Spoken — Slovak and Czech (native), German and English (fluent).

Education #

B.A. Business Administration — International University, Bad Honnef / Munich. Dual study programme, 2014–2017.

Contact #

Email is best: karolcik.matej@gmail.com. Code is on GitHub.

I also worship my dog and treat Chupa Chups as a food group. The dog is in your browser tab if you would like a second opinion.