~/about
About Me
The human behind the terminal
I'm Nico Jörger from Achern, Baden-Württemberg — an Applied Computer Science graduate from Hochschule Offenburg. Before my degree, I spent several years as an industrial electrician at Koehler Paper Group: Siemens PLC programming, circuit design, and fault diagnosis on complex industrial plant systems. That background is not something a purely software-trained engineer brings.
The combination of industrial hands-on experience and computer science lets me work across every system layer — embedded firmware, process automation, self-hosted servers, or local AI systems — without needing a separate specialist at each level. My bachelor's thesis investigated efficient local LLM chatbots running on CPU-based embedded hardware (Raspberry Pi 5).
In my own time I run a fully self-hosted infrastructure: Proxmox virtualization with VMs and containers, a NetBird mesh VPN for secure cross-device access without any exposed ports, Nextcloud, GitLab, Grafana monitoring, and automated backups. This is not a hobby experiment — it is exactly the kind of infrastructure I build for clients.
Work Experience
Working Student in Automotive Firewall Testing Team
Vector Informatik
- ›Developed interface between Python-based test automation and CANoe
- ›Implementation using FDX protocol and CAPL for CANoe communication
- ›Automotive firewall testing – validation of network security functions
Industrial Electrician
Koehler Paper Group · Kehl
- ›Construction of a new conveyor system
- ›Fault diagnosis in roll cutting, conveyor, and packaging systems
- ›Siemens PLC operation and maintenance
- ›Maintenance of paper machines during scheduled downtime
- ›Coordination with external contractors
Apprenticeship: Industrial Electrician
Koehler · Oberkirch · Berufsschule Offenburg
- ›Siemens S7 & PCS7 programming
- ›Fault analysis on circuits and complex industrial plants
- ›Construction of circuits and new systems
- ›Award for internal improvement proposal (2017)
- ›KRIKO PCS7 training course (2018)
Education
2020 – 2026
B.Sc. Applied Computer Science
Hochschule Offenburg · Focus: Embedded Systems, Networking, Software Development
2019 – 2020
Vocational College – University Entrance Qualification
BBS Bühl · One-year programme · Graduated with distinction
2012 – 2014
Two-Year Vocational School – Electronics
Bühl · Electrical engineering fundamentals
Bachelor's Thesis
Hochschule Offenburg · 2025/26
Efficient Local LLM-based Chatbots on CPU-based Embedded Systems
Comparing llama.cpp and TinyChatEngine (AWQ) on the Raspberry Pi 5 — analysis of inference speed, memory, power consumption, and model quality. llama.cpp with Q4_K_M achieves 2.1–2.3 tok/s, consistently outperforming TinyChatEngine.
Interests
skills.json
Technologies & Skills
From microcontrollers and PLCs to cloud infrastructure