My name is Charbel Wakim, a Lebanese expat living in Frankfurt, Germany.
The story started the first time I saw Doom on a PC. I begged my parents to get me one, then immediately dismantled it to see how it worked. That was the moment I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Currently a Staff Engineer at Emma The Sleep Company, working on platform engineering with a focus on e-commerce. Before moving to Germany, I spent years working with the largest retailers and service providers across the Middle East as a Web Developer, Technical Consultant, and DevEx Engineer.
Sharing what I learn has always been part of how I work, whether through a talk on observability and Black Friday at Grafana ObservabilityCon 2023 in Berlin, a DevSecOps certification, or keeping a close eye on how AI is reshaping engineering workflows through LLMs, prompt engineering, and tools like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot.
Outside of work, the geek runs deep: gaming, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and whatever rabbit hole I have fallen into this week. When I step away from the keyboard, I write about family, travel, and the occasional systems metaphor for life on Life in Production.
Browse my portfolio, download my CV, or just reach out.
Emma The Sleep Company May 2020 - Current
Architecting and maintaining the IaC (Infrastructure as Code) setup using Pulumi, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes, and AWS for a global e-commerce platform serving millions of customers across 35+ countries.
Driving developer experience improvements through automation, AI-powered tooling, and self-service internal platforms — reducing deployment friction and increasing engineering velocity across product teams.
The Volunteer Circle March 2017 - February 2024
Led all technical decisions and full-stack development for Lebanon's largest volunteering platform, building it from the ground up.
Oversaw platform performance, scalability, and infrastructure over 7 years of growth, ensuring high availability for a community of thousands of volunteers.
Addbloom January 2020 - February 2021
Oversaw the technology stack across multiple client projects at one of the MENA region's most-awarded web development agencies.
Mentored junior developers, established code quality standards, and collaborated closely with QA to ensure consistent on-time delivery.
Grand Stores Online September 2018 - December 2019
Led the full technical overhaul of GS Online's e-commerce platform, managing the complete migration from Magento 1.9 CE to Magento 2 Enterprise Edition on Cloud.
Delivered improved performance, scalability, and feature parity while maintaining business continuity throughout the transition.
Keeward February 2014 - August 2018
Led multiple e-commerce development teams while owning all major marketplace integrations including Amazon, FNAC, Walmart, and Abebooks — enabling clients to expand their reach across global platforms.
Triangle December 2010 - December 2015
Co-founded Triangle SARL, a full-service web development agency, serving as technical lead and de facto CTO.
Owned all architectural decisions for code and database, managed cross-functional delivery teams, and mentored a growing team of developers.
Built HTML5/CSS3 web portals and custom CMS solutions for clients with complex and demanding business requirements.
Alfa Telecommunication June 2010 - October 2011
Applied ITIL best practices by designing and building a Service Catalog that automated key internal processes and reduced manual overhead.
Implemented the catalog inside HP's Service Manager and delivered a companion internal web portal built with PHP and MySQL.
Public Talk • Berlin, Germany
How Grafana Cloud turned Black Friday into a dream sales day for Emma The Sleep Company — a deep dive into observability, real-time monitoring, and performance at scale during peak traffic.
Watch Talk →Certification • Credly Verified
Certified in DevSecOps practices, integrating security into the full software development lifecycle — from code review and dependency scanning to infrastructure hardening and deployment pipelines.
View Badge →Certification • Bootcamp
Master the art of leading through influence, not authority — how to read stakeholder needs, build trust and credibility without formal authority, drive alignment when priorities compete, and handle pushback without damaging relationships.
View Certificate →Language Certification • telc Verified
Certified German language proficiency at B1 level (CEFR) — demonstrating independent communication skills in everyday professional and social situations while living and working in Frankfurt, Germany.
Verify Certificate →Development of all type of websites and platforms.
Technical consultancy for platforms including performance enhancement, security, infrastructure, SEO...
Setting up infrastructure, monitoring tools, backup, and IaC.
Integrating LLMs and AI tools into developer workflows, platforms, and automation pipelines.