Dr. Alex El‑Shaikh

I build scalable, high‑performance systems — from architecture to implementation — with a background in database systems and DNA data storage research.
Based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Senior Software Engineer | Java, Distributed Systems, Concurrency, Databases

  • PhD-trained software engineer with 7+ years of experience designing scalable, high-performance systems in Java.
  • Skilled in architecture design, performance optimisation, and data-intensive and real-time applications.
  • Proven track record delivering production systems end-to-end, collaborating across teams, and mentoring engineers.
7+ years Java experience Software architect Concurrency & performance tuning Data‑intensive & real‑time apps
Portrait photo of Alex El‑Shaikh
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Experience

2026–present Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Software Architect

  • Leading architecture design and technical decision‑making for scalable systems.
  • Driving performance and reliability practices across services and teams.
Feb 2025–Jan 2026 Imperial College London, UK

Postdoctoral Researcher · Data Science Institute

  • Research on DNA data storage systems with query support and random access.
  • Teaching support and mentoring; delivered 2 lectures in NoSQL Database Systems.
2019–2024 University of Marburg, Germany

Research Fellow · PhD (Dr. rer. nat.)

  • Random access mechanisms for DNA data storage systems.
  • Work on database systems, indexing, and efficient algorithms.

Publications

Teaching

Lectures

  • Relational Database Systems — University of Marburg
  • NoSQL Databases — University of Marburg
  • Geo Databases — University of Marburg
  • NoSQL Databases: MongoDB — Imperial College London
  • NoSQL Databases: Neo4j — Imperial College London

Exercise sessions

Database Systems NoSQL Databases Software Engineering Efficient Algorithms Object‑Oriented Programming Linear Algebra Analysis Geo‑databases
Teaching illustration

I enjoy breaking down complex topics into understandable concepts and seeing students grow through engagement and collaboration.

Skills

Languages

Java Python SQL Rust C# C++ R Kotlin Scala MATLAB JavaScript TypeScript Dart Go PHP Lua Prolog Julia Haskell

Frameworks & Tools

Spring Boot Maven Docker Kubernetes Git Linux JUnit Pandas FastAPI REST APIs JDBC jOOQ JPA AWS CI/CD

Database Systems

PostgreSQL MongoDB Elasticsearch Neo4j Redis Kafka Spark HBase InfluxDB