My first steps

Born in 1982 in the beautiful highlands of the canton of Zurich in Switzerland. My first experience with software development started in 1991 when I bought my first PC with the support of my parents.

After installing and setting up my Olivetti PC with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 I soon got inspired by the possibilities QBASIC provided. At this time the Internet was at its beginning and most of my studies and learning sources, therefore, were books of course. I ate my first "QBASIC in 21-Days" tutorial book in about 5 days. I enjoyed analyzing, playing with, and editing other sourcecode and projects very much as this gave me inspiration and the base knowledge I needed to build my own applications. I started with some simple games like Snake or Nibbles and Gorillas.

Studies and apprenticeship

My official studies and business career as Software Engineer started in 1998 by completing 1 year in a IT-School named ACOS to learn the IT basics. In 1999 I began my apprenticeship at Greenshare AG as Software Engineer. The company was mainly building Windows applications and database-driven software products for swiss public administrations. Theoretical studies took place at TBZ (Technical Business School Zurich). I graduated in 2003 with a professional business school diploma magna cum laude.

Business career

After my studies, I worked for about 4 years at Credit Suisse as an external employee hired through Multilateral AG - a big service provider and human resources provider to Credit Suisse. Till 2010 I mostly developed with and for MS Windows and UNIX platforms. Beginning in 2011 I set my focus on mobile app development and switched my work tools to macOS and Linux-based systems.

I mostly worked on a contract base as an employee or as freelancer for different companies but I also have extensive experience as a self-employer with my own company - kimhauser.ch. The last episode is taking place since 2017 where I'm producing different software products for my private customers. But since COVID-19 slipped into the scene it got harder to acquire projects and I also see that there are more people without jobs looking for new business career opportunities. Because all of my past projects are done and I'd like to get back to the security of a contract with a fixed salary etc. I'm now looking for a new job contract.

Since 2018 in my free time I also started getting my head all-around 3D modeling, animation, and programming. I started creating 3D models and animating them with Autodesk Maya and produced some 3D games with the help of Apples XCode SceneKit. As it all got a little more complex and my expectations reached a new level I switched over to the Unreal Engine as a platform for development. I also switched to Blender for modeling and animating my 3D models as Maya 3D is a bit too expensive for my budget. And Blender does the trick just as well - if not even better sometimes.

My private life

I really do believe in the right work-life balance. Of course, I do quite a few IT tasks and stuff in my spare time for myself, but that's not everything. I really try to separate work and free time. The best way for me to opt-out is through music. For me, music is the grease of life. You can express and also experience so many emotions through music even if it's just by listening to it. Everyone has their own preferred music style and I would never try to judge someone by the kind of music she or he listens to. Sometimes you might get really surprised about the music style someone likes. But hey - that's one of the things that makes our world so great and shimmer in so many colors, doesn't it?

Besides that, I like dogs very much - I'm a dog person - and I also adore nature. I love to enjoy a good barbeque with a bonfire somewhere high up with a nice outlook and a good meal together with my friends. Some salads, something to put on the grill, and maybe a beer or two. Of course, my friends and I play by the rules and leave everything we touched as it was before we came. We clean up our own mess and put out the fire before we leave etc. By the way that's also what we expect from everyone else - even if that is not always self-evident today - sad but true. But my philosophy is "We are all humans - and everyone makes mistakes" and we always should be able to talk to each other to help one another out if there is something in mistake.

Another thing that gives me real freedom is painting - mostly with gouache or acrylic paints. I've done quite a few paintings over the last couple of years and you can check out a small subset of them which I've digitalized and put on the web available at art.kimhauser.ch. It's nothing really mega special but you have a look if you like! For me, painting and arts of any kind are better than any therapist or medicine.