Since childhood, I have always been drawn to computers. I began by creating static and dynamic web pages using MySQL and PHP3. In high school, I had the opportunity to develop a webpage for one of the first videoconference systems, called VRVS, an ambitious project led by Prof. Harvey Newman from CALTECH. During that time, I was part of a group called Virtual Collaboration, which promoted physics in Slovakia. I worked on a videoconference archiving system, a management and reservation system, and an academic calendar. All these projects were unique services at the time (around 2001), utilizing JavaScript, MySQL, and PHP.
After earning my degree in Computer Science, I was offered a position at DESY to work on beamline beamline P02.1. My task was to migrate old command-line-based hardware controls to a modern, Python-based graphical user interface. This challenging environment required high-quality and stable software solutions. Within a few weeks, I delivered the first version of the control software, which was based on a Tango backend and a PyQt frontend. This achievement was made possible through excellent collaboration with talented scientists and synchrotron beamline users. Over the course of two years, I developed control software that addressed the entire pipeline, from data collection to evaluation.
With all the experience I gained in hardware controls, I transitioned to Prof. Henry Chapman’s group at CFEL, which focuses on coherent imaging techniques. This group develops state-of-the-art hardware setups and conducts experiments worldwide (LCLS, ESRF, SPring-8, and more). I developed a framework called Kamzik3, which covers hardware controls and data acquisition for every experiment conducted. My most significant projects, aside from the experiments, included developing control software for a tabletop X-ray microscope (SIGRAY) and custom-built magnetron sputtering machines (MAG).
After many years in academia, I decided to embrace new challenges and began working as a freelancer in March 2022. I also became more involved in the open-source community. You can find some of my projects on GitHub, PIP, and StackOverflow.