Norman Kämper-Leymann

Norman Kämper-Leymann began his journey in web development as a student assistant at university. At that time, platforms like Plone and MODX were prevalent, and development relied heavily on !important CSS, without preprocessors or package managers. His introduction to WordPress marked his first encounter with PHP templates.

During a traineeship, he was introduced to Drupal—a project that initially overwhelmed him with its complexity. Determined to understand it, he began following issues on drupal.org and applying patches himself. The collaborative nature of the Drupal community, with contributors from around the world working toward a common goal, fascinated him. He knew he wanted to be a part of it. The day he submitted his first patch to drupal.org was an unforgettable milestone.

Among job opportunities, those centered around Drupal always captured his interest the most. The platform constantly evolves, ensuring that development remains exciting. As web technologies rapidly advanced, Drupal underwent a major transformation, becoming a flexible backend that could integrate with any custom front-end. Over the past three years, Norman has focused on DevOps and continuous integration, areas that have significantly benefited from Composer and configuration management. Now, he looks forward to deepening his expertise in JavaScript.

Contact

📍 City: Berlin, Germany 📧 Email: [email protected] 💬 Telegram: t.me/normanlol 🌐 Website: norman.lol

Skills

• Soft Skills: Communication, Teamwork, Supportive, Open Source Collaboration
• Technical Skills:
  • PHP, Drupal, WordPress, Symfony
  • DevOps, Behat, Gulp, Bootstrap

Badges

• Acquia Certified Developer Drupal 8
• Drupal Association Individual Member

Community Involvement

Drupal User Group Berlin - Organizer

As one of four organizers of the Drupal User Group Berlin, Norman helps coordinate monthly meetups where 10 to 20 Drupal enthusiasts gather to share knowledge, insights, and ideas. His responsibilities include hosting events, organizing talks, moderating discussions, and ensuring the smooth running of the group.

Education

🎓 Bachelor's Degree (December 2011) Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Norman holds a bachelor's degree in Area Studies, with a focus on Asia and Africa, as well as Gender Studies as a subsidiary field. These interdisciplinary studies allowed him to explore topics such as post-colonialism, linguistics, cultural studies, and Japanese language.

Experience

1xINTERNET (Jan 2021 - Present)

Senior Full-Stack Developer At 1xINTERNET, a leading Drupal agency with offices in Germany, Spain, and Iceland, Norman works as a full-stack developer on various projects for diverse clients. In addition to development, he collaborates with colleagues from different backgrounds in a remote-first environment, sharing knowledge via company Slack channels. He frequently supports front-end developers with Drupal-related tasks, steps in as a back-end developer, and assists the DevOps team in preparing projects for deployment and optimizing pipelines.

IBM iX - Aperto (Jan 2020 - Dec 2020)

Senior PHP Developer As part of Aperto, a digital agency owned by IBM, Norman contributed to large-scale enterprise projects. Most of his work focused on developing a complex Drupal-based business tool for a major German health insurance company. While primarily handling backend development, he also designed a new base theme for the application.

Ayusa-Intrax (Apr 2017 - Dec 2019)

Lead Web Developer At Ayusa-Intrax, the German branch of the US-Japanese Intrax Corp., Norman coordinated the relaunch of multiple Drupal 7 sites into a unified Drupal 8 multi-site setup. Working alongside a front-end and back-end developer, he introduced continuous integration, pull requests, and code reviews. Additionally, he helped redesign and relaunch the company's WordPress blog with a new Bootstrap-based theme.

CB.e AG (Jul 2016 - Mar 2017)

Web Developer Returning to CB.e AG, Norman initially focused on front-end development but soon transitioned to Drupal 8 projects. He appreciated working with a skilled and engaged team, where he learned best practices for ensuring smooth project execution.

b-connect (Sep 2015 - Jun 2016)

Web Developer At this small Berlin-based Drupal agency, Norman worked on a multi-language Drupal marketing site, implementing quizzes and gamification features.

Affinitas (Mar 2015 - Aug 2015)

Web Developer At Rocket Internet, Norman contributed to a Drupal-based multi-site supporting an international online dating platform. The project featured multi-language, multi-design, and multi-content functionalities. During his time here, he developed an appreciation for planning pokers and Agile sprints.

{berlin-coding} (Sep 2014 - Feb 2015)

Web Developer Norman experimented with freelancing alongside developer friends, enjoying the independence of being his own boss. However, he eventually missed working within larger teams with dedicated roles and structured project management.

CB.e AG (Mar 2013 - Aug 2014)

Junior Web Developer Norman's introduction to Drupal began at CB.e AG, a full-service agency in Berlin, where he transitioned from trainee to junior web developer after graduating from university.

Projects

Rebuild Cache Access [🔗 Link]

Norman's first Drupal.org project, Rebuild Cache Access, addresses a longstanding Drupal issue-allowing non-admin users to flush caches without requiring "administer site configuration" permissions. The module introduces a dedicated permission and a convenient toolbar button for drupal_flush_all_caches().

Drupal CircleCI Behat [🔗 Link]

With Drupal 8, Composer, and configuration management simplifying DevOps, Norman initiated this automated deployment sample project. Using CircleCI, he set up a containerized Drupal environment and configured Selenium-controlled headless Chromium browsers to perform Behat testing. If an issue arises, Behat captures a screenshot for debugging.