Lasse Alexandros Diercks · Managing Director, Exaptation
Every layer of software, for fifteen years.
I've been building software for fifteen years, across every layer of it: interfaces and design systems, checkouts and APIs, the Kubernetes cluster this page runs on, the CMS that delivers its words, and the AI agents that help run the business behind it.
That isn't a flex. It's the reason I'm useful when a problem doesn't sit neatly in one department. The expensive ones rarely do. They live between the layers: the design decision that turns into a backend problem, the hosting choice that turns into a legal one, the dashboard that measures the wrong thing.
Every layer, with a receipt
One piece of evidence per layer. Names, no adjectives.
Design & UX
Jimdo: designer, frontend developer and partly product owner for the website templates. Redesigned the WYSIWYG editor and ran the usability tests.
Design systems
Xing: helped establish a design language used by more than 30 development teams. Fielmann: led the design systems team.
Frontend
React for Budnikowsky, Vue for brand eins, Nuxt for CandleScience, SvelteKit for CAS and this site. And a TV set-top box interface for A1.
Commerce
CandleScience, a US candle-supply shop: a product configurator that calculates wax and wick, and a custom checkout on Braintree.
Accessibility
Jimdo, Boehringer Ingelheim's patient site lifewithpulmonaryfibrosis.com via factorial, Budnikowsky, IFBHH. At CandleScience: fixed what an external audit found.
Backend & APIs
CandleScience: documented the API of their legacy Rails monolith and built the connection layer that opens it to MCP integrations, so AI assistants can work with it.
Infrastructure
CandleScience: from Netlify to Cloudflare, Heroku, AWS and Kubernetes. Google Cloud on several smaller projects. Today an on-premise Talos Kubernetes cluster at Exaptation that hosts this website, its CMS, analytics, code hosting and single sign-on.
Content management
Jimdo, a website builder: the templates, the editor interface and the template picker for its users. Drupal for Boehringer Ingelheim, AlchemyCMS for brand eins. Today a headless CMS we built ourselves.
AI agents
CandleScience: a substantial part of the AI infrastructure and the MCP connections (Model Context Protocol: how AI assistants plug into a system) to their legacy Rails monolith. In-house: our own platform where AI agents do day-to-day work.
Privacy & security
Xing: built an internal GDPR data-governance tool. Today: GDPR audits and security reviews of our own products.
Complexity & research
Cynefin Foundations with Cognitive Edge. Today: narrative customer research with SenseMaker.
Where it happened
- 2026–today
Exaptation Consulting on complex problems, and the products and infrastructure behind it.
- 2020–2026
CandleScience Configurator, checkout, the Nuxt 3 migration, accessibility, a redesign, and AI infrastructure with MCP connections to the Rails monolith.
- 2024
CAS A prototype frontend system in SvelteKit, with WebSockets.
- 2019–2020
Fielmann Design systems team lead, plus real-time prototypes.
- 2019
Cognitive Edge Cynefin Foundations.
- 2019
brand eins The responsive mobile redesign, in Vue.
- 2019
superluminar A website redesign in Hugo.
- 2019
IFBHH via cellular Project setup in React, TypeScript and GraphQL.
- 2018
Schubrakede Founded a rapid-prototyping service: small client projects, built fast on cloud building blocks to match what each customer needed.
- 2018
A1 A redesigned interface, ported to TV set-top boxes.
- 2018
Budnikowsky The first React UI skeleton and the product components.
- 2018
Boehringer Ingelheim via factorial UI components in Drupal for a patient-information site.
- 2018
sum.cumo Reusable UI components across insurance software projects.
- 2017
Xing A GDPR data-governance tool and a design language for 30+ teams.
- 2011–2016
Jimdo Website templates, the editor interface, landing pages and an internal UI component library.
What I'm not
I'm not the deepest specialist in any one of these layers, and I won't pretend to be. When you need someone who tunes a database to the last millisecond, or a lawyer, I'll say so and help you find the right person.
What I bring is the map: how the parts touch, where they break, and which question to ask first.
Context matters
That's also why Exaptation works the way it does. Complex problems don't get solved by a framework and a slide deck. I like to quote Dave Snowden here: "You don't conquer a mountain, you climb it." You work your way up, with someone who knows the terrain, adjusts to the context, and is honest about what nobody can predict.
Does your problem sit between the layers? Let's talk.
Book a chat