Khadim Fall
I am a software engineer in Munich. I work at Productlane alongside my master's at TUM, where a lecture on distributed systems planted most of what I now build in my free time.
My projects tend to share one shape: a hard systems problem hiding under a surface that must feel effortless. A sync engine that turns database research into instant interfaces. Chess software that moves a lot of data while feeling weightless. I care about both ends and I do not think you can delegate either.
This site is a mirror of that: the projects I am proud of, the way I work, and the standard I hold myself to.
Principles
01
Keep a beginner’s mind.
I want to stay the beginner, however long I do this. Every idea gets a real hearing, whoever brings it.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”
02
Restraint is not the absence of care. It is the evidence of it.
Every element that stays out was a decision. The quiet parts take the longest.
“Weniger, aber besser.”
03
Carry the complexity so the user never sees it.
Good tools feel simple, regardless of their inner complexity. The simplicity is the work.
“Every application has an inherent amount of irreducible complexity. The only question is: who will have to deal with it?”
04
Understand the problem before you fix it.
Understanding from first principles is slower once and faster forever. A fix without it is the next problem.
“A problem well stated is a problem half solved.”
05
Fast is a feature of honesty.
A spinner is a promise the software already broke. Speed is keeping your word.
“If it could save a person’s life, could you find a way to shave ten seconds off the boot time?”
All of this I learned from people who said it better. Dieter Rams called indifference towards people and the reality in which they live "actually the one and only cardinal sin in design". I craft user experiences with that sentence in mind. The reality people live in has dead zones, old laptops and closing train doors, and software that ignores this is indifferent, however polished it looks.