Open to freelance, contract & embedded engagementsSeptember 2026

Jürgen Bonne

Forward-Deployed Product Engineer

Jürgen Bonne

I embed with clients, decide what to build, own the product and technical decisions, and stay until it works in production. Twenty years as a technical product and delivery lead are behind every decision. With AI, I now build most of it myself.

Jürgen Bonne

For most of my career, through my own companies, I have worked directly for clients, with selected development and design teams, and embedded in digital agencies. The industries kept changing. The job stayed the same: make the problem clear, surface the technical consequences early, and take it all the way to production.

Earlier in 2026, as Zirkel AI’s sole engineer, I designed, built and operated two AI products. Today my work is forward-deployed. I stay close to the users and the systems, and I answer for what ships. I take freelance, contract and embedded engagements where product decisions, technical decisions and delivery need one senior owner.

Selected work

Seven of more than a hundred engagements
2026

Zirkel AI (Agent Systems)

Technical Lead & Product Engineer

Stack

  • Core agent system · 17 tools
  • Human-gated learning · memory tiers
  • Python · FastAPI · React · TypeScript
  • Postgres · in-house retrieval · tenant isolation
  • 2,100+ tests · CI-gated
  • Hetzner EU · GDPR engineering

Engagement

  • Direct

As the team’s sole engineer, I took two product lines from concept to real-world use: a B2B agency platform and a B2C consumer product. I owned the architecture, the implementation and the operations.

I designed and built the agent core, the learning and memory layer, in-house retrieval, tenant isolation, the frontends and the infrastructure. Expert corrections become knowledge only after a human approves them. Every metric a user sees is computed in code. The model narrates results, it never invents them. Both products were validated in real-world testing with external users. If something shipped or broke on the technical side, it was mine.

2022 — present

mobil.live (KielRegion)

Technical Product Manager & Product Concept Lead

Scope

  • Public mobility service
  • Live since 2022
  • Browser · kiosk dashboards
  • NGSI-LD · GTFS · live ferry positions
  • Cross-organization integrations · multilingual
  • openCode / EUPL

Agency

  • hanseatics rich media

From the start, I shaped the concept, the information architecture and the UX approach, led the design work, and brought hanseatics on board for the development. I run the backlog, write the acceptance criteria, test what the development partner ships, and take every release through go-live with the client’s approval.

The data comes from mobility and geospatial providers that fail in different ways, and deciding what users see when a source goes quiet is part of the product. Public kiosks fall back to a default state, so the next person starts clean. The code is published on openCode under the EUPL.

2022 — 2026

DeutschlandCard (Bertelsmann)

Technical Product Manager & Delivery Lead

Scope

  • Large-scale loyalty program
  • Four years, continuous
  • Requirements · QA · releases
  • Nuxt · Magnolia · GraphQL · Elasticsearch
  • AWS · Kubernetes · Cloudflare
  • Sourcepoint consent · Webtrekk · Grafana

Agency

  • deepblue networks

For four years without a gap I led delivery within deepblue’s team. I turned product concepts and strategy into requirements, worked through the technical consequences with development and UX, ran the sprints, and handled go/no-go and rollback for releases.

I drew the two system maps, web portal and tracking, that every stakeholder worked from, and I configured and maintained the tagging, tracking and consent flows myself. For the price comparison of 28 million products, I aligned the backend data model with the UX and set the server-side rendering requirements for indexing and search. For accessibility, I designed and prototyped an AI workflow that captioned more than 10,000 CMS images.

2024

UNGER.DE (B2C Retail)

Technical Product Manager & Requirements Engineer

Scope

  • Luxury fashion retail relaunch
  • Shopware · custom implementations
  • Figma reviews and sign-offs · Confluence specs
  • Single point of contact
  • QA · hypercare planning

Agency

  • MUTABOR

For the UNGER.DE relaunch, MUTABOR brought me in as the single point of contact between the client’s executive team, the UX designers and the Shopware development studio. I wrote the requirements and specifications, aligned the designs with the client, and checked each increment against them through QA and go-live preparation, including the hypercare plan. I validated the off-canvas cart, variant selection and the listing and filter states against Shopware constraints with the lead developer while changes were still cheap, and carried the client’s sign-offs.

2022 — 2023

KNF (B2B Ecommerce)

Technical Product Manager & Integration Lead

Scope

  • B2B commerce MVP
  • TYPO3 CMS · Salesforce commerce & CRM
  • Four organizations · joint acceptance
  • Gated pricing · one-country pilot
  • Requirements · journey testing

Agency

  • MUTABOR

KNF piloted online ordering of sample pumps in one market, with the client, MUTABOR’s designers and two development partners each owning part of the build. Across the four organizations I owned the purchase journey, from technical concept and requirements through end-to-end testing and joint acceptance. The existing TYPO3 site and the new Salesforce commerce area had to feel like one experience, which took custom modules on both sides: login and cart state moved over REST, and pricing appeared only after registration and login.

2016 — 2021

otelo (Vodafone)

Technical Project Manager & Co-Product Owner

Scope

  • Telecommunications
  • B2C digital portfolio
  • Five years, recurring
  • Headless Drupal · React SSR · BFF
  • WebID KYC · PSD2
  • Penetration tests · on-call · releases

Agency

  • deepblue networks

Over five years of repeat engagements I worked across concept, product and delivery in otelo’s B2C portfolio. I led the concept for a headless CMS serving web and native apps from one content system, which deepblue implemented.

I held production rights in the CMS, published approved tariff and campaign changes, and joined the on-call rota. I planned and defended maintenance and refactoring separately from feature work. I turned GDPR into consent specifications across web and apps, and specified, aligned and tested the identity checks and PSD2 flows with external providers.

2012 — 2014
and 2019

Red Bull Storm Chase (Global Event)

Digital Lead & Platform Delivery

Scope

  • Drupal event platform
  • Red Bull infrastructure · Brightcove
  • Facebook Open Graph app · social login
  • Live coverage · in-production editing

Engagement

  • Direct — Red Bull Media House
  • 2019 — via Big Sexy Pictures

Red Bull Media House commissioned the first Storm Chase platform directly from me. I pitched the concept, coordinated my own freelance developers and designers, and delivered the platform.

The event sends professional windsurfers into severe storms wherever they occur, with almost no audience on site, so the platform was the venue: registration, spot nomination, community voting, a global map and live coverage. During the missions I edited live in production and ran the event’s own channels. I returned for later editions through Big Sexy Pictures, in 2019 as Helicopter Producer.

Capabilities

Proven by the work above
01

Bridge client intent and delivery

At DeutschlandCard I turned product intent into requirements for four years, across changing systems and teams.
02

From backlog to production

mobil.live has been live since 2022, and I still run its backlog, tests and releases.
03

Clients who come back

otelo came back for five years, DeutschlandCard for four, and most of niulabs’ work was repeat business.
04

Full product ownership

Twenty years of specifying systems for delivery teams. In 2026 I designed, built and operated two AI products myself.

Systems & technologies

How I work with them

The cases above show these systems in context. Some I have designed, built and run myself. With others I map the current state, specify changes, work through interfaces and stay through release.

Built & operated directly
Python, FastAPI and SQLAlchemy · React and TypeScript · Postgres and BigQuery · LLM pipelines · in-house retrieval · conversational commerce · OAuth, multi-tenancy and server-enforced isolation · Hetzner and observability.
Product, content & commerce systems
Nuxt · Magnolia · Drupal · Shopware · WordPress · TYPO3 · LAMP-stack delivery · Elasticsearch · headless content models, taxonomies, permissions and editorial workflows · Storybook and design-system collaboration · Salesforce commerce interfaces.
Data & interfaces
REST and GraphQL · backend-for-frontend layers · versioned API contracts and integration validation · Redis caching · GTFS and NGSI-LD mobility feeds · analytics data flows · external identity, payment, recruitment, mapping and media integrations.
Delivery & operations with teams
AWS and Kubernetes · Docker · CI/CD and environment-promotion paths · staging and production environments · Cloudflare, CloudFront, web-application firewalls, CDNs and caching · release and rollback planning.
Compliance, privacy & accessibility
GDPR consent and data-flow specifications · Sourcepoint, Tealium and Google Tag Manager · cookie and client-storage lifecycle · penetration-test analysis and remediation · PSD2 and regulated identity flows · accessibility as a delivery criterion.
Measurement, testing & improvement
Webtrekk and Google Analytics implementations · A/B and multivariate testing with Optimizely · rapid user testing · Core Web Vitals and Lighthouse · Sentry, Graylog, Grafana and load-test evaluation · acceptance criteria and full-journey validation across browsers, devices and environments.

Career

2004 — present
Jan 2026 — present

Forward-Deployed Product Engineer, Remote worldwide

I continue the client work of my niulabs years under my own name. Zirkel AI added hands-on AI systems work, from agent architecture to operations.
Jan 2011 — Dec 2025

Founder & Managing Partner, niulabs GmbH, Hamburg

Fifteen years of technical product, concept and delivery work for B2B and B2C digital services and ecommerce platforms, most of it repeat business.

Brands

  • Vodafone
  • Red Bull Media House
  • DeutschlandCard
  • KielRegion
  • CASIO
  • Beiersdorf
  • Migros
  • OTTO Group
  • KNF
  • UNGER
  • element e

Agencies

  • deepblue networks
  • MUTABOR
  • DOKYO
  • hanseatics rich media
  • k1 digital
  • Big Sexy Pictures
Aug — Sep 2021

Head of Experience Strategy, LionGate AG, München

A senior role at this established IT partner for digital transformation. It confirmed that my heart beats for hands-on product and delivery.
Apr 2013 — Sep 2014

Lecturer, Digital Branding, Brand Academy, Hamburg

Taught and examined brand management in digital transformation.
Mar 2009 — Dec 2010

Co-founder & Managing Partner, plusminus7 GmbH, Berlin

Built an agency combining digital marketing with business-process work.

Brands

  • Danone
  • Clarins
  • Diageo
  • Universal Music Group
  • MTV
  • Swatch
  • Colgate
Jul 2008 — Feb 2009

Account Manager, Heye & Partner GmbH (DDB / Omnicom), Hamburg

Web marketing and campaign platforms in Heye Digital Lab, where I helped build the new team.

Brands

  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Eckes-Granini
  • Bahlsen
  • Wernesgrüner
  • Volksbank
Aug 2006 — Jun 2008

Project Manager, Act Agency GmbH, Hamburg

Concept, budgeting, and delivery for national and international cross-media campaigns.

Brands

  • ProSiebenSat.1
  • Warsteiner
  • Beiersdorf
  • Unilever
  • Land Rover
  • Samsung
2004 — 2005

Internships, Bauer Media Group, Hamburg and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, New York

Digital media concepts at the publisher, strategic sourcing at the music company.

Education and international context

1992 — 2006
2002 — 2006
Diplom-Medienökonom (FH), Media Management — BiTS, Iserlohn. Business, media, and technology. Final grade 1.4.
2004
Semester abroad, UNSW Sydney — business and media studies, in English.
2005 — 2006
Partial scholarship — Gertrud-Wichelhoven-Stiftung, awarded for academic performance.
2003 — 2006
BiTSLicht and BiTS.fm — student magazine and campus radio: technical and streaming setup, design, and a board role.
1992 — 2001
Abitur — Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gymnasium, Münster.
1999
Maui Ocean Academy, Hawaii — high school term abroad, completed with a US high school diploma.
1997
St. Michael’s High School, Barbados — high school term abroad.

School in Barbados and Hawaii, a semester in Sydney, an internship in New York, then twenty years of work in Hamburg and Berlin. Based on Ibiza since 2025. Native German, fluent English, basic Spanish.

Get in touch

I am available.

I am not scalable.

I can talk to you.

…to your developers.

…to your designers.

…to your clients.

…to your auditors.

I say no when scope does not fit the timeline, when ownership is missing, or when engineering is asked to build without acceptance criteria. If you only need more hands, I am not the right fit.

Solve one problem

One to six weeks to untangle requirements, de-risk a release, unblock delivery, specify an integration or prototype an AI workflow.

Embedded in the team

Part-time or interim inside your team, several months or longer. Remote from CET, on site when useful.

Thirty minutes will tell whether I can help.

Email jb@youdots.comSend your number and a good time to reach you.

AI helped me interrogate twenty years of project history for this profile. The evidence, judgments and claims are mine.