This page is regularly updated to show what I’m currently working on. It’s not meant to be a chronological list, so anything I’m no longer doing won’t appear here anymore.

I am currently considering what I want to do over the next five years; there are several options.

• Stay at AWS (Amazon Web Services)
  • I am currently managing a team of 5 Solutions Architects at AWS. Becoming a manager was never a “dream” I had, it just happened over time as I was evaluating becoming a mentor for people, I saw this as a valid option to develop new talent in the company. However I also realized after almost 1,5 years that this is probably not my personal best skill set and that I am better if I am building stuff. Actually I enjoy building stuff a lot more than anything and can immerse myself in it for hours and hours without realizing time going by.
  • Staying at AWS is also something that will keep the status quo, which partially is nice because it does not create great waves in my personal life but it also does not offer too many exciting new things to discover in the short term.
  • Changing back to an IC role sounds like the best intermediate option but probably I will investigate deeper into where I exactly could find what I am looking for. I consider this the best mid-term option.
  • Short term, I will stay in the manager role and learn a couple more things how to become better at it as I still believe these are valuable lessons to learn.
• Leave AWS
  • I have multiple thoughts about this topic, where it could lead. On the one hand, I could probably find a new job at another tech company doing very similar things as I am currently. Either team lead or individual roles would be options but realistically all of them would be in corporate environments due to the salaries that they can pay compared to small or mid size businesses. However salary is probably not the main driver for this decision overall.
  • Thinking about corporate environments, I am really convinced that just changing into another company wouldn’t necessarily make me happier, it would just be different.
  • Becoming an independent consultant is definitely an option I am considering, however it requires a few more deep thoughts on what exactly I will be specializing for and what kind of engagement model I would actually want to pursue. Leasing myself based on the hour to companies is the least interesting whereas finding a more productised approach sounds much more sensible to me as it offers more freedom of how to deliver results vs. being a so focused on billing the hours.
  • I recently got some external coaching and will evaluate those lessons once more to find some direction, also with the help of AI. I am pretty convinced that in the end I will end up with a path that leads me to having my own business but I am not 100% settled on this yet, there is a lot to discover first.

Things I’m currently exploring

• AI (of course), but more specifically
  • AI driven 3D CAD model design (see https://chat3d.app)
    • I developed an AI driven CAD model generator, which is available on github at https://github.com/kreuzhofer/chat3d-react-amplify
    • Currently this project is stalled but I am ready to pick it up soon, trying out some new ideas
  • AI driven content generation (see https://ausmalbar.de)
    • I vibe coded this application into existence using windsurf in a couple of hours.
    • Actually I must state that using vibe-coding as a developer with over 20 years of experience using different programming languages and probably having used douzends of different frameworks and technologies over the years, this brought me so much pleasure and got me back the fun of coding. During this project I also realized how much fun it is to build something from scratch and bring it to production, run it in the wild and get some real users on it.
• 3D printing, probably my biggest hobby ever, since over 7 years
  • I am still making content about 3D printing on my YouTube channel https://youtube.com/crosslinkchannel.
  • Recently I did a lot of live-streams, building things live on the channel. This was on the one hand a lot of fun but also not many people watched the content.
  • Making short form videos is fun but it also rarely converts into sales or long-term video views.
  • Making long-term videos is time consuming and I wasn’t committed to making a lot of them in the last 12 months.
  • Still, my long-term videos are performing the best on the channel and I am reconsidering my whole strategy to get back to making long-form videos as they provide the best ROI and are actually not as hard to produce anymore as I have a pretty well-structured workflow.
  • I am also evaluating options to make more money from the channel by:
    • Creating online-courses that are cohort based, so there is a real world or direct-access element where I can interact with the participants directly over just on-demand
    • Creating on-demand courses for free on YouTube that funnel in to the cohort based courses.
    • Creating my own 3D models and selling either digital or physical copies
    • Working with more high quality brands and getting sponsorships beyond just products that are currently being sent for testing.
    • Getting paid for designing things, but this is very time consuming and hard to replicate multiple times. I’d rather not prioritise it.
    • Creating digital products like chat3d.app that users can register and pay a monthly fee for.
• Coding. I recently came back into coding using Windsurf as it helped me tremendously to set up new projects in very short time. I actually enjoy it a lot, especially together with AI, which makes you undoubtedly more productive. However, I am not looking for a career as a dev anymore, I’d rather work on my own projects bringing ideas to life and quickly releasing them to the public to figure out if they are valuable ideas, which can potentially make some money in the long-run.

Generally, I’m considering all these options at the same time and will ideally need to make a decision by the end of 2025. If I end up pursuing self-employment, I’m aiming to set up a few different streams of income that can run in parallel. Relying on just one income stream—as a content creator, for example—feels pretty risky, so it makes sense to experiment with a bunch of things first to see what works.

That’s where I’m at as of June 2025—let’s see what’s coming up next.