Mark Schröder

AI Lead at Needs. AI matching, B2B.

@mark_schroedr GitHub LinkedIn

01.

Portfolio

Code

AutoAnki

A local study tool that turns clipboard text, screenshots, and dropped notes into Anki cards I review before exporting.
Alpicool BLE Control

A macOS controller that changes my sleep-cooling box temperature overnight and records its status over Bluetooth.
Canvas Lab

A tiny local design canvas for wireframing with Codex or Claude: chat on the left, live browser preview on the right.

Writing

Building a Sleep Cooling System for a Fraction of the Price

A €200 water-cooled mattress built from an Alpicool camping fridge, a 5 W pump, and a local macOS BLE controller.
Don't Sleep on This: 2024 Edition

Why scaling laws made me update toward much faster AI progress.
View all blog posts

02.

About Me

Hi, I'm Mark. This page collects some of the things I do. Feel free to email me for any inquiries.

Now: AI Lead at Needs, B2B matching. Based in Vienna.
Side: Mechanism design, coordination and AI governance. A few small tools and experiments.
Study: Still finishing the Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen at RWTH Aachen, eventually.
From: Schleswig-Holstein → Aachen → Vienna.
Languages: DE / EN

03.

Experience

AI Lead | Needs, AI Matching

Needs, Vienna (Remote)

October 2025 to Present

Building an AI matching platform for B2B. Leading AI and engineering work in a team of three.

Bachelor's Thesis | AI for Requirements Management

Audi AG, Ingolstadt

February 2025 to May 2025

Developing a system to automate workflows in requirements management; building tools to generate test cases from requirements.

Intern | AI Implementation in TE

Audi AG, Ingolstadt

October 2024 - February 2025

Wrote code to optimize brake cooling parameters for ESC systems; worked with simulation data to improve realtime temperature simulations. Matlab, Python, Carmaker, Synopsis Silver.

Research Assistant

Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) at RWTH Aachen University

October 2023 to October 2025

Revision and modernization of the EIP web platform (data collection). JavaScript, HTML, CSS; SQL Server-based database.

Founder & Developer | DirectionAI

Direction AI

August 2023 - February 2024

Developed DirectionAI, a life planning tool using LLMs for personalization. Built MVP on Bubble.io with AI integration.

04.

Education

RWTH Aachen University

Bachelor's in Industrial Engineering and Management (Mechanical Engineering)

October 2020 - Present

05.

Otherwise

Outside of work I kitesurf, play volleyball, dive, read (lately a lot of ancient history), and basteln. Spent six months on Work & Travel in New Zealand, back in 2020.