SGContact me

SG

Hello, world! I'm Sebastian Gräf, German software developer with a strong online marketing background as a professional affiliate marketer. I'm making things on the web since 2003.

Contact me

# About me

I can help companies build modern web applications and websites in a transparent way. I have experience working solo and in international teams and with B2C and B2B products. As a product-minded developer I aim to deliver value to users early while keeping solid technical foundations. I'm currently based in Asia and do full stack development specializing in frontend and web performance.

Main technologies I work with are JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Node, GraphQL, PHP, Laravel, PostgreSQL, AWS, Tailwind... but I'm a proponent of picking the right tool (including AI) for the job depending on all requirements.

Interested in working together?

# Testimonials

"I can highly recommend Sebastian. Always delivering on time, great eye for details, state of the art knowledge and use of framework and best practices (especially regarding React and GraphQL) and just overall nice to work with!"
Alexander Barge, CTO @ deineStudienfinanzierung

# Experience

  1. Freelance Developer

    Sebastian Graef LLC
    Software development and consulting for companies and running personal projects.
    RateThis
    Jun 2024 - Present

    SaaS to help businesses grow their customer reviews and collect feedback. Full stack development from scratch with Laravel, Livewire, AlpineJS and Tailwind.

    Screenshot of RateThisScreenshot of RateThis
    15 months contract at deineStudienfinanzierung
    Mar 2019 - Jun 2020
    Joined full-time to develop a web app (React, Prisma, GraphQL) that digitzes the student loan and financial aid process in Germany, created the marketing website with blog (Gatsby, WordPress).

  2. Senior Developer

    Lifull Connect logoLifull Connect
    Full stack development for Dotproperty / FazWaz, a Lifull Connect company, on some of the largest B2C real estate portals in South East Asia across different tech stacks:
    • Developed features and improved portals Dotproperty, ThailandProperty (Laravel, PHP, Vue, JS, MariaDB), Hipflat (RoR, Ruby, JS, MongoDB) and microservices (Kotlin)
    • Led development of a modern frontend in vanilla JS and Tailwind with a new build process resulting in smaller bundle sizes and better developer experience
    • Led improvements of portal performance and core web vitals for SEO by >100%
    • Integrated newly acquired portals into global company-wide systems
    • Migrated main data sources from heavy xml imports to a shared GraphQL API that reflects property listing changes immediately while maintaining most of the legacy code
    • Interviewed candidates screening for technical skills and company values fit
    • Improved code quality and test coverage with a TDD approach and pair programming
    • Reduced infrastructure and third-party API costs by $x,xxx per month
    • Developed a custom GPT for the GPT store launch that helps find real estate in Thailand
    • Worked with marketing teams to launch web apps (Vue, NextJS) for online sales events
    • Onboarded new colleagues and shared knowledge with pair and mob programming
    • Collaborated closely with product managers and SEO team, helped to run agile ceremonies

  3. Software Engineer

    Polynorm Software logoPolynorm Software
    • Developed the frontend of a complex new B2B product, a PIM system with CMS
    • Migrated the first prototype from JQuery to a React app with a modern build process
    • Introduced JavaScript unit tests to improve code quality and maintainability

  4. Self Employed

    Managing Director & Frontend Developer
    enter digital ventures, Dec 2014 - Oct 2015
    • Developed the frontend of two Saas apps (AngularJS) from idea to finished product
    • Created two lightweight embeddable widgets (Preact) distributed via CDN
    • Planned a content marketing strategy that generated thousands of social shares
    Owner, Web Developer & Online Marketer
    newgo media, Jul 2006 - Oct 2015
    • Bought, sold and developed my own premium .de domains like Handball.de
    • Realized about 50 small to medium-sized web projects (PHP, JavaScript)
    • Managed and monetized a domain portfolio with up to 1,500 domains
    • Ran affiliate marketing campaigns with SEM (Adwords) and SEO

# Volunteering

  1. Communications Lead

    START Berlin logoSTART Berlin
    • Led the online marketing efforts on social media and handled IT including a new website
    • Organized events, meetups, tours for startups and students interested in entrepreneurship
    • Held workshops about online marketing topics like conversion rate optimization

# Contact me

Sebastian Gräf portrait

Interested in working together? Just send me an email and I'll get back to you asap.

  • I can join an engineering team full-time or part-time on retainer
  • Develop projects for a fixed price or for hourly rates
  • Improve core web vitals and other web performance issues
  • Build an MVP including help to define the feature set
  • Evaluate job candidates with technical interviews
  • Advise on getting remote work in distributed teams right
Let's talk!
Email:
sebastian@segr.de
Languages:
German, English