Berlin, Germany
I work in software, make music, and practice Sōtō Zen.
Most of what I care about involves attention: how we direct it, what we build around it, and what becomes possible when we stop filling every available space.
Practice
Sōtō Zen
I practice in the Sōtō tradition, where zazen is not treated as a means to another end. Sitting is part of the ordinary rhythm of my life and a way of meeting experience without immediately trying to improve or escape it.
Over time, I have also become interested in the points of contact between Zen and Stoic philosophy, particularly their attention to judgment, conduct, and how we meet what is beyond our control.
Work
Software product management
I am a product manager at Spotify. My work is mostly about platforms, recommendations, and the relationships between the people who build systems, the teams that depend on them, and the people who eventually use them.
I have spent more than a decade working on software products. As software development changes, I embrace AI as part of my research, prototyping, and hands-on development. I remain mindful of its limitations and the need to keep human judgment and dignity at the center. At its core, the work remains the same: taking something unclear, making it understandable, and helping people build it together.
Independent software
Sesshin
Sesshin is a meditation app I designed and built for iPhone and Apple Watch. It supports zazen and kinhin, helping practitioners move between sitting and walking meditation while tracking and sustaining a regular practice. It is small by design, but not slight.
I wanted a tool that could help sustain a practice without making the tracking itself the point. Building it gave me a place to bring software and Zen together, quietly and on my own terms.
Music
Rhea Silvia
I make electronic music as Rhea Silvia. It brings together the creativity of songwriting and composition with the technical problem solving of mixing and mastering, all guided by a pursuit of beauty.
I have been making and releasing music for many years. I began Rhea Silvia in 2018, and the project now reaches about 48,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Notes
A place to think in public, occasionally.
I may write here from time to time about software, music, Zen, Stoicism, attention, and whatever else continues to follow me around. There is nothing to subscribe to yet.