My name is Michael Schmid, but everybody calls me “Schnitzel”. The nickname began during my school days and stuck with me as my online presence grew. You may know me from DrupalCon as the long-haired guy yelling directions to you from behind the camera for the official group photo. I'm CTO of Amazee Labs Zurich.
From beginning on I knew I wanna be an IT guy. So I got my first education with an apprenticeship in IT at Siemens. Even though the team I was working in built huge networks, I couldn't let go from building websites for the company and in my free time.
As most swiss men, I joined the Swiss Army. As planes and helicopters are my passion, I applied for the selection as a military pilot. As an officer I learned a lot about managing and teamleading.
I joined Amazee in 2009, at the time, a startup founded around a product, which I would help grow into a new business model. We relaunched as Amazee Labs. At the time there were only 6 employees with myself one of the only two developers. Today I’m the CTO, member of the board and shareholder of Amazee Labs Zurich. We are 20 employees and build Drupal sites for international clients.
The Amazee Holding is an international organization specializing in web development and online marketing. So far we've founded Amazee Metrics, which provides SEO and Analytics; and Amazee Labs Austin, which builds Drupal websites for customers based in Austin, TX.
I believe that everybody using Drupal should contribute back, community involvement is an important pillar of my leadership values, and I actively encourage other leaders to follow me and do the same. Here some of my contributions I'm specifically proud of.