Sandro Speth

Dr. rer. nat. · Postdoctoral Researcher

Technical University of Munich

I research how software architecture knowledge can make large, component-based systems easier to understand, maintain, and evolve — from cross-component issue management to AI-assisted software engineering and engaging computer-science education.

Software Architecture Issue Management AI for Software Engineering AI for Software Architecture SE Education Microservices & DevOps
Email Google Scholar ORCID GitHub LinkedIn YouTube
Portrait of Sandro Speth
43+
Peer-reviewed publications
Journals, conferences & workshops
450+
Citations
Google Scholar
13
h-index
i10-index 16
€193K
Third-party funding
€138K as sole PI
Dr. rer. nat.
Doctorate, summa cum laude
Read the dissertation ↗
Research

What I work on

My research connects software architecture with the day-to-day reality of building and maintaining complex, component-based and service-oriented systems.

Software Architecture & Issue Management

Modelling architectural knowledge to detect, manage, and analyse the propagation of cross-component issues across independently developed services — the foundation of my Gropius platform.

AI for Software Architecture

Combining large language models and agentic AI to support architecture generation, evaluation, and optimisation — and to recover architecture models from existing systems while lowering modelling effort and expertise barriers.

Software Engineering Education

Designing gamified, motivating learning experiences — the Gamify-IT and MEITREX platforms, intelligent tutoring systems, and LLM-based automated generation of programming exercises and assessments.

Microservices, DevOps & Self-Adaptive Systems

Reference architectures, deployment-model optimisation, resilience and chaos experimentation, and explainable self-adaptation for elastic, SLO-driven microservice systems.

News

Recent updates

Selected milestones, publications, and activities.

Recognition

Awards & funding

Selected honours, and €193K in third-party research funding — €138K acquired as sole principal investigator, the remainder through significant contributions to funded proposals.

Awards & honours

  • Best Artifact Award — ICSA 2026 — “Supporting Architecture-Level Resilience Analysis…”
  • Seal of Excellence — European Commission — MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship proposal ArchAIOpt, scored 90.81%
  • Best Paper nomination — CLOSER 2024 — “Hosting-Aware Pruning of Components in Deployment Models”
  • Best Poster nomination — CLOSER 2024 — “Pruning Modes for Deployment Models”
  • Best Demonstrator Paper nomination — ECSA 2020 — “Gropius — A Tool for Managing Cross-Component Issues”
  • Doctorate awarded summa cum laude — University of Stuttgart

Research funding

  • €138K · Gropius — sole PI — BMFTR / Software Campus (2024–2026), with Volkswagen AG
  • €48K · TiPMin — proposal contribution — significant contribution to Prof. Steffen Becker's proposal · MWK Baden-Württemberg / bwDigiFellows (2023)
  • €7K · digital.macht.schule — proposal contribution — significant contribution to Prof. Steffen Becker's proposal · MWK Baden-Württemberg (2023)
  • ArchAIOpt — MSCA Fellowship proposal — rated fundable (Seal of Excellence), with S. Zschaler (KCL)
Publications

Publications

A selection of my peer-reviewed work. Full list on Google Scholar and ORCID.

Teaching & Projects

Teaching and open-source

I care about turning research into things students and developers can use.

Courses

  • DevOps: Engineering for Deployment & Operations — co-instructor (English)
  • Interactive Learning — seminar & practical course (English): teams build & user-test exercises and tools for the Artemis platform
  • Programming & Software Development — ~800 students, main supplementary lecturer
  • Data Structures & Algorithms — ~550 students
  • Software Architecture — master's, taught in English
  • Model-Driven Software Development — master's, taught in English
  • Bachelor's & master's seminars — advanced topics, focus on non-functional aspects
  • Project-based courses — student teams build software over a semester; several led to publications
  • Industry training — Robert Bosch GmbH (since 2020) & Reutlingen University / KFRU (since 2025)

Supervision

  • Co-supervising 3 PhD students — deployment variability; multi-modal DSL GUI testing; software engineering education
  • Supervised 42 theses & student projects — 9 M.Sc. + 16 B.Sc. theses, 17 research projects

Selected projects

Issue Management

Gropius ↗

Architecture-aware, cross-component issue management & propagation analysis.
Reference architecture

MiSArch ↗

A representative microservice reference architecture for research and teaching.
Education

MEITREX ↗

Adaptive, gamified learning platform with an intelligent tutoring system.
Education

Gamify-IT ↗

Web-based gaming platform for engaging computer-science education.
Tooling

HyLiMo ↗

A blended modeling editor — diagrams edited as code and graphically, kept in sync.
Education

EduIDE ↗

An online IDE tailored to programming education, built on the Theia IDE.
Academic Service

Community & service

Roles in the German and international software engineering community.

Committees & leadership

  • Steering committee — GI SIG Software Architecture (elected, since 2026)
  • Spokesperson — Microservices & DevOps group, GI (since 2023)
  • Steering committee — AI for Software Architecture (AI4SA) group, GI (since 2025)
  • Study, admission & professorial hiring committees — University of Stuttgart (2015–2025)

Program committees & reviewing

  • Program committee — ICSA (2025–2027), ECSA (2026), CSEE&T (2024–2026)
  • ICPE — artifact evaluation (2025–2026) & Posters/Demos track chair (2026)
  • Workshop chair — GI Software Engineering (2027); organiser & chair — AMP @ ECSA (2025)
  • Journal reviewer — JSS, Empirical Software Engineering, ACM TOSEM, IEEE Software, ACM TAAS, JPDC
Background

Experience & education

A short overview of my academic path.

Experience

2025–now
Postdoctoral Researcher
Applied Education Technologies, Technical University of Munich
2019–2025
Researcher & Lecturer
Institute for Software Engineering, University of Stuttgart
2022–2023
Visiting Lecturer
Ludwigsburg University of Education
since 2020
Freelance industry lecturer
Robert Bosch GmbH; Reutlingen University (KFRU, since 2025)

Education

2019–2025
Dr. rer. nat., Software Engineering — summa cum laude
University of Stuttgart
2017–2019
M.Sc. Software Engineering
University of Stuttgart
2012–2017
B.Sc. Computer Science
University of Stuttgart
Contact

Get in touch

Open to research collaborations, thesis topics, and research visits — and I offer professional software engineering training for companies. Office hours by appointment — please email me.

Office
Room 01.07.039 · Boltzmannstraße 3, 85748 Garching b. München
Affiliation
School of Computation, Information and Technology (CIT), Technical University of Munich
Industry training
Professional software engineering courses for companies, building on the Mission2Move program — email me to discuss.

Find me online

TUM Profile Scholar ORCID GitHub LinkedIn YouTube