About
Carsten Böhm
Data engineer and data lead based in Dubai. Currently running data and analytics at a UAE payments fintech, with eight years of hands-on experience across IoT, streaming, and analytical platforms.
Background
The story
I spent five and a half years at Alexander Thamm GmbH, Germany's biggest data consultancy, ending as Principal Data Engineer. I led IoT pipelines processing logs from 4 million cooking devices, built a recipe recommendation system serving 30 million requests a day for Vorwerk's Thermomix, and shipped streaming pipelines for food and beverage processing.
In late 2023 I moved to Dubai and joined Pyypl, a UAE payments fintech, as a senior data engineer, then grew into the Head of Data & Analytics role. I spearheaded a Databricks migration that cut ETL costs by half, re-engineered pipelines for real-time transaction processing, and built out the reconciliation data models the finance team now runs their day on. That engagement continues now as a contractor.
Along the way I watched a lot of teams get sold tools they didn't need. I've seen companies spend $50k a year on Snowflake when PostgreSQL would have been fine. I've seen modern data stacks with 12 tools where 4 would have done. What I try to do now is the opposite: understand what you actually need and help you ship it without enterprise overhead you can't afford yet.
Philosophy
What I believe
Start simple, scale when needed
The best architecture is the simplest one that solves your current problem. Complexity should be earned through actual scale requirements, not anticipated based on ambition.
Vendor-neutral recommendations
I don't have partnerships or referral agreements with vendors. My recommendations are based on what works for your situation, not what pays me the most.
Implementation matters more than slides
I'm a practitioner, not a presenter. I've built the systems I recommend. Strategy is valuable, but only if it leads to working infrastructure.
Your team should own it
I build systems your team can maintain. Full documentation, knowledge transfer, and patterns they can extend. Not black boxes that require me to keep running.
Experience
Selected work
Eight years of data engineering across fintech, connected hardware, and IoT. Each engagement is written up as a case study with the problem, the deliverables, and the kind of work it would be today.
Current engagement
Data platform rebuild for a UAE payments fintech
Strategy, Databricks migration, financial models, reconciliation, and BI for a digital payments company. Joined as a senior data engineer, grew into Head of Data & Analytics, continue as a contractor.
Past engagement
Recommendation platform for Cookidoo
End-to-end recommender for Vorwerk's Thermomix recipe service, serving 30 million requests a day on Kubernetes, with a team of three engineers.
Stack
Technologies I work with
Location
Based in Dubai
Operating from Dubai, fully remote. I work with clients across multiple time zones.
Primary regions: Middle East, DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), UK, and broader EU.
Working hours coverage
- Middle East: Full overlap
- Europe: Strong overlap (morning + afternoon)
- UK: Good overlap (afternoon)
- US East: Limited overlap (early morning)
Let's talk about your data challenges
No sales pitch. Just an honest conversation about what you need.