Professional AI Engineer · Zürich, CH

Thomas
Rolf
Mannhart

In Zürich, my team and I are designing and building the Swiss AI Hub, an AI platform for organizations of every size. For our customers, I design custom AI solutions to solve their most pressing problems that were previously impossible or extremely difficult to solve without AI. I'm passionate about sharing my experience in building and implementing an AI-augmented development process.

Thomas Mannhart
TM
01

About

I'm a Professional AI Engineer at bbv Software Services in Zürich. My team and I build the Swiss AI Hub — a Swiss-made, model-agnostic AI platform for organizations of any size — alongside custom AI solutions for customers, with a focus on RAG systems and agentic workflows. I also lead customer AI projects as Dev Lead.

I studied Informatics at the University of Zürich, earning a Bachelor's in Software Systems and a Master's in Artificial Intelligence. Throughout my studies I worked as a software engineer: first at swissbiomechanics (an ETH spin-off), then at PolygonSoftware where I worked as a full-stack developer leading customer projects, and at Ergon Informatik on workforce planning software for retail — before moving to bbv as an AI Engineer.

I grew up in Galgenen in the canton of Schwyz and, after a year of military service, studied Informatics at the University of Zürich, where I spent over six years — first a Bachelor's in Software Systems, then a Master's specializing in Artificial Intelligence. For my bachelor thesis I built a general-purpose range join algorithm for PostgreSQL, which won the Semesterpreis HS20 — a faculty-level award from the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics, recognizing one of only four students across the entire faculty that semester. The thesis took me to the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano for a research stay in South Tyrol. For my master's I dove into time series databases and the Kronecker decomposition — an unusual intersection of linear algebra and data compression that I found genuinely fascinating. The programme included an exchange semester at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, where I lived for four months, took a semester of Mandarin, and explored East Asia.

Throughout my studies I was always working alongside. My first real software job was at swissbiomechanics, an ETH spin-off, where I single-handedly built a Java application for tracking biomedical analyses and generating clinical reports. That threw me into the deep end of stakeholder communication and independent project ownership at twenty-two. From there I moved to PolygonSoftware, a startup founded by fellow UZH graduates, where I spent three years leading full-stack development and diving into computer vision and machine learning. I designed architectures, supervised dev teams, and talked directly with clients — the kind of small-company work where you end up doing a bit of everything and learning fast.

After finishing my Master's, I joined Ergon Informatik, one of Zürich's most respected software houses, and worked on a time-tracking and workforce planning system for the retail sector. There I sharpened my craft in enterprise Java and Kotlin, handled the full delivery cycle from requirements to support, and found that I really enjoyed mentoring — whether that was onboarding new team members or organizing IT workshops for local students. I loved working at Ergon but left after about a year when bbv offered the chance to move into my preferred specialization: AI.

These days I'm a Professional AI Engineer at bbv Software Services in Zürich, where I'm developing the Swiss AI Hub together with my team — a comprehensive, Swiss-made enterprise AI platform — and design its architecture together with the software architect. Beyond the platform, I design and implement customized AI solutions — especially RAG systems — for customer projects in industry and market research, and serve as technical lead (Dev Lead) on these AI projects. I also operate and maintain the platform at customer sites. It sits at the exact intersection of my interests: real engineering problems, cutting-edge AI, and the challenge of making complex technology usable and trustworthy for organisations that can't afford to get it wrong.

I also speak and write about AI-augmented software engineering — how AI is changing the way we build software, not just the software itself. I've given talks at the FHNW Alumni Event and bbv webinars on practical methods for integrating AI into the development lifecycle, from requirements analysis through to testing.

My technical toolkit centres on Python, TypeScript, and Java/Kotlin, with deep experience in agent orchestration, RAG, and the Model Context Protocol. I'm fluent in German and English, and speak some French. And when I'm not coding — hot tea, cold beer, good food, thick books, old music, and long boardgame nights.

02

Experience

2025–now

Professional AI Engineer

bbv Software Services AG
Zürich, Switzerland
  • Development of a comprehensive AI platform.
  • Architecture design of the AI platform in collaboration with the software architect.
  • Architecture and implementation of customized AI solutions, in particular Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, for customer projects.
  • Technical leadership (Dev Lead) of customer projects in Artificial Intelligence in the industrial sector and market research.
  • Operation and maintenance of the AI platform on-site including customer-specific AI solutions.
  • Delivering technical talks and webinars on AI-augmented software development.
Python TypeScript SQL RAG Agent Orchestration MCP LiteLLM vLLM Milvus Dagster MinerU Docling Presidio FastAPI NestJS Azure OpenStack Docker Keycloak Traefik Nginx Redis MongoDB NATS / JetStream Langfuse OpenTelemetry SigNoz Git GitHub Claude Code
2023–2024

Professional Software Engineer

Ergon Informatik AG
Zürich, Switzerland
  • Analysis, design, and implementation of software components.
  • Requirements engineering and creation of requirement criteria and specifications.
  • Mentoring of new team members.
  • Contribution to project proposals.
  • Second- and third-level support for customer projects.
  • Conception and implementation of prototypes.
  • Creation of automated test cases (E2E tests).
  • Code reviews and implementation of review feedback.
  • Youth outreach: organized and conducted IT workshops for students.
Reference letter
Java Kotlin Angular TypeScript SQL PostgreSQL HTML / CSS Selenium Jenkins Gradle Git Bitbucket JIRA
2020–2023

Senior Full Stack Developer

PolygonSoftware
Opfikon, Switzerland
  • Full stack development of web applications, as well as computer vision and machine learning projects.
  • Design and creation of software architecture.
  • Supervision of software development teams.
  • Coordination with product owners and clients on application requirements.
  • Elicitation of software requirements.
Reference letter
Vue TypeScript Node.js Express GraphQL SQL AWS
2019–2020

Junior Software Engineer

swissbiomechanics ag
Zürich, Switzerland
  • Management of an independent software project.
  • Conducting and leading stakeholder meetings.
  • Stakeholder needs analysis and creative problem solving.
  • Independent software development.
  • Coordination with other developers and projects.
Reference letter
Java JavaFX
03

Education

BSc in Informatics
University of Zürich
2017–2020
Thesis
A General-purpose Range Join Algorithm for PostgreSQL. Written at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, supervised by Anton Dignös.
Other
Semesterpreis HS20 — awarded for outstanding bachelor's thesis by the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics.
MSc in Informatics
University of Zürich
2020–2023
Thesis
KroneDB — Compressing and Querying Time Series Data using the Kronecker Decomposition. Supervised by Johannes Marti and Dan Olteanu.
Project
Airspace Auction Simulator — with Johann Schwabe and Joel Barmettler.
Other
Exchange semester at the National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei.
04

Skills

Languages

Python
TypeScript
Java
Kotlin
C++
SQL

AI Platform

RAG
Agent Orchestration
MCP
LiteLLM
vLLM
Milvus
Dagster
MinerU
Docling
Presidio

Web Frameworks

FastAPI
Angular
Vue
Eleventy

Cloud & Infrastructure

AWS
Azure
OpenStack
Docker
Keycloak
Traefik
Caddy
Nginx

Data & Messaging

PostgreSQL
Redis
MongoDB
NATS / JetStream

Observability

Langfuse
OpenTelemetry
SigNoz

Tools

Claude Code
Git
GitHub

Competencies

Team Leadership
Customer Communication
Stakeholder Management
Mentoring
Youth Outreach
Public Speaking
AI-Augmented Software Engineering
06

Beyond Work

Some of my most formative experiences happened far from a desk — locked in an Airbnb during a pandemic, exploring Taiwan during an exchange semester, or stumbling through Mandarin with classmates from all over the world.

Bozen, South Tyrol
Bachelor thesis · 2020

I went to the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano to write my bachelor thesis — and arrived just as COVID shut everything down. I could only attend the university for two weeks before it closed. I ended up locked in an Airbnb in the countryside of South Tyrol, walking the host's dog twice a day through apple fields to keep sane. The isolation turned out to be remarkably effective for getting work done.

Taipei, Taiwan
Exchange semester · NTU · 2022–2023

I lived in Taipei for about four months during my Master's, studying at the National Taiwan University. I took a semester of Mandarin — I still remember some, but not nearly enough for a real conversation. I travelled around the island whenever I could.

Korea & Japan
Side trips from Taipei · 2023

From Taipei I went to Korea for a week with two Japanese friends from my Mandarin course. Towards the end of the semester my girlfriend visited, and we travelled to Japan together, flying back to Switzerland from Tokyo. I also visited one of my Japanese friends in his hometown Sasebo.

Get in touch

Feel free to reach out — I'm happy to chat.