• Job: Software Developer, Data Engineer, Lab Digitalization/Automation Consultant
• Field: Data-related projects for life science labs (mostly data engineering, rarely data science)
• Languages: Mainly Python, also Java, C#, SQL, Bash, and whatever is needed to get the job done
• Location: From Germany, living in Switzerland
• LinkedIn: in/niklas-mertsch
• Languages: German, English

SiLA2-related:

• Author: sila_python: Python implementation of the SiLA2 standard (Python, gRPC)
• Author: sila_interoperability: Interoperability test framework for SiLA2 implementations (Python, gRPC)
• Author: sila_base/xslt: XML-to-Protobuf converter written in XSLT 1.0 for cross-language compatibility (XSLT, Protobuf)
• Author: sila2-proto-generator-web: Static website for converting SiLA2 feature defnitions (XML) to Protobuf (HTML, Vanilla JS)
• Contributor: SiLA2 specification for laboratory automation (gRPC)
• Contributor: sila_java: Java implementation of the SiLA2 standard (Java, gRPC)

Recent:

• fastq-stats: Count reads and basepairs in .fastq.gz files (Rust, Python)

Stale:

• podcaster: Command-line podcast player (Python)
• SDF: Convert microscopy file formats to unified XML (Python, student job)
• dotfiles: Collection of configuration, scripts and notes for my Linux setup (Linux, Bash)

Most of my daily work is not public. However, when I find an issue with a FOSS project I'm using, I create a ticket and (if feasible) try to make a PR. Here is a selection:

• beeware:
  • toga: Add type annotations (beeware/toga#2044)
  • briefcase: Use git config as default author/email if available (beeware/briefcase#2271)
  • briefcase: Align license terminology with SPDX license list (beeware/briefcase#2272)
• twobitreader: Add Python 3 support (benjschiller/twobitreader#6)
• pymssql: Add PEP 561 support (pymssql/pymssql#926)
• pytest-qt: Improve docs and CI examples (pytest-dev/pytest-qt#551)
• flake8-docstrings: Raise supported pydocstyle version (PyCQA/flake8-docstrings#48)

• Admin of the SiLA2 GitLab group and Slack Server
• Co-organizer of the EuroPython conference in 2024 and 2025, on-site volunteer in 2023
  • Administration and bot development/maintenance for the conference Discord server: europython/discord
  • Tech and non-tech support for attendees