Quality-Driven Software Engineer

Charles Heller

I build reliable web apps — with testing, architecture, and automation from day one.

Enterprise QA and test management experience meets modern fullstack delivery. Based in Germany · open to remote and hybrid roles.

Open for freelance, contract, and full-time roles · Germany / remote-friendly.

View CV

Swiss Life · Playwright / TypeScript · Next.js

NavisSedes preview

Featured case study

NavisSedes

Live system serving paid and free events with interactive seating, 10-minute holds, Stripe checkout, QR tickets, and role-based admin check-in.

Built with / for

  • Swiss Life

    Enterprise QA / Test Management

  • St. Godehard

    NavisSedes ticketing platform

  • Elikuren

    Choir web presence

Selected Work

Case studies that show how I ship software — and the quality systems that travel with it.

NavisSedes screenshot

NavisSedes

Production event-ticketing for basilica concerts — seat holds, Stripe, QR tickets, and staff check-in.

  • Result — Live system serving paid and free events with interactive seating, 10-minute holds, Stripe checkout, QR tickets, and role-based admin check-in.
  • Problem — A church concert series needed reliable seat reservations, payments, invoicing, and door check-in — not a generic ticketing SaaS.
  • Approach — Next.js 16 + Prisma/Neon domain model (Venue → Plan → Seat), atomic seat holds, Stripe webhooks with mock fallback, QR tokens, admin scanner, Vitest + Playwright.
  • Testing — Vitest covers domain/services; Playwright covers booking and admin flows — quality is part of the delivery pipeline, not a afterthought.
10-minute atomic seat holdsPaid + free checkout pathsVersioned seating plans (Draft → Published)
Next.jsPrismaNeonStripePlaywrightVitest
Read case study
Seatly screenshot

Seatly

Fullstack restaurant discovery and reservation app with auth, menus, and booking persisted end-to-end.

  • Result — Deployed demo with city search, auth sessions, restaurant detail/menus, and reservation persistence across environments.
  • Problem — Needed a production-shaped booking product to prove fullstack delivery beyond UI demos.
  • Approach — Next.js + Prisma/Neon, JWT auth, reservation flow, develop/production DB branches, and Playwright coverage in CI.
  • Testing — Playwright CI covers home, search, restaurant/menu, reservation, and auth paths against a seeded database.
Multi-city restaurant searchJWT auth + session restoreCI Playwright suite on push/schedule
Next.jsPrismaNeonJWTPlaywright
Playwright Automation Suite screenshot

Playwright Automation Suite

Maintainable E2E suite with Page Object Model — critical paths as engineering artifacts, not ad-hoc scripts.

  • Result — Published POM-based suite with HTML report UI — automation presented as a shippable engineering product.
  • Problem — Ad-hoc UI checks do not scale; teams need durable automation they can trust in CI.
  • Approach — TypeScript + Playwright with clear POM structure, focused scenarios, and readable failure signals/reports.
  • Testing — The suite itself is the deliverable: structured specs, POM, traces/report artifacts for debugging.
Page Object Model structureCritical-path login + cart coverageHTML report for stakeholders
PlaywrightTypeScriptE2EPOM
Elikuren Website screenshot

Elikuren Website

Responsive site for chamber choir Elikuren — clear structure and a professional digital presence.

  • Result — Public-facing choir site with polished hero storytelling and clear navigation for concerts and participation.
  • Problem — A cultural organization needed a modern web presence that feels trustworthy and easy to navigate.
  • Approach — Next.js + Tailwind with content-first layout, strong visual hierarchy, and mobile-ready UX.
  • Testing — Responsive UI validation and content hierarchy reviews across breakpoints before release.
Content-first responsive layoutClear concert discovery pathBrand-forward first viewport
Next.jsReactTypeScriptTailwind
How I Work

Quality is part of how the product gets built — not a phase at the end.

This is the wedge I bring versus pure frontend profiles and pure manual QA: I ship features and design the systems that keep them reliable.

01

Ship with tests

Critical user flows are designed with automation in mind — so quality scales with the product, not against it.

02

Build for maintainability

Clear domains, strong typing, and CI-friendly structure keep codebases shippable months after the first release.

03

Quality as product sense

Edge cases, testdata, UX friction, and failure modes are product decisions — not an afterthought before release.

Experience

From enterprise quality leadership to shipping modern software.

I started in QA, test automation, and test management on enterprise projects — then expanded into shipping modern web products myself. Today I work as a quality-driven software engineer: I build reliable applications and bake testing, architecture, and maintainability in from day one.

Test Manager

Swiss Life

Multi-year · Enterprise CRM & digital delivery

Lead quality for complex enterprise delivery — aligning teams on risk, coverage, and release readiness across CRM and related digital workflows.

  • Owned test strategy in agile delivery for multi-team CRM programs.
  • Drove automation with Playwright, TypeScript, API testing, and structured testdata practices.
  • Partnered with engineering and product so quality became a shared delivery signal — not a late gate.

Software Engineer · Freelance / Projects

Independent

Ongoing · Web products & automation

Building modern web applications while applying the same quality systems used in enterprise environments.

  • Shipped fullstack products such as NavisSedes (ticketing) and Seatly (reservations) with Next.js, Prisma, and cloud data layers.
  • Designed Playwright / Vitest suites and CI-ready automation as part of product delivery.
  • Bridged QA depth and engineering ownership — from architecture decisions to shippable releases.
Stack

Focused tools I use to ship and keep systems reliable.

Core

TypeScriptReactNext.jsPlaywrightNode.js

Platform

PrismaPostgresStripeNeonCloudflareGitHub ActionsAWS

Also used

PythonSeleniumk6VitestPostmanDocker
Get In Touch

Let's build something reliable together.

Open for freelance, contract, and full-time roles · Germany / remote-friendly. Germany-based · remote-friendly. Tell me about the role or product — I usually reply within one business day.

charles@charlesheller.devLinkedInCVPDF
“References from enterprise delivery and client projects are available on request via LinkedIn or email.”
Professional references