I am a passionate product manager with over 15 years’ experience. I am working at ETAS GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of Bosch #likeabosch. I have worked with cross-functional, interdisciplinary product teams building great tools that help automotive engineers to succeed with developing embedded software for future vehicles.

Products / solutions I have led

I have gained most of my experience from working on the ETAS EHANDBOOK solution. ETAS EHANDBOOK is an interactive documentation solution for automotive embedded software.

It helps users to

find relevant information quickly,
understand dependencies more easily, and
get working tasks done more efficiently.

Check out what EHANDBOOK is all about: Understand vehicle software faster!

Achievements

In 2016, the readers of the trade magazines Elektronik and Elektronik automotive voted EHANDBOOK on the 3rd place in their “Product of the Year 2016” award (see online article and article).

Me and my colleague Ralf Rick receiving the "Product-of-the-year-award" by Automotive Elektronik Stefanie Eckardt, at the time editor at Elektronik automotive, presents the award myself (middle) and my colleague Ralf Rick (right)

Over the years, EHANDBOOK has been adopted by many vehicle manufacturers, their suppliers as well as engineering service companies. Some of them, for example, AUDI and HONDA, have also shared how they use and benefit from using EHANDBOOK.

My take on product management

In 2013, I had the luck to participate in a product management workshop led by Marty Cagan from Silicon Valley Product Group (SPVG).

At that time, I was working as product manager on the first version of ETAS EHANDBOOK.

In the workshop, Marty shared a lot of knowledge on how successful product teams work and create value for their customers. Besides the inspirational workshop, Marty also shared a copy of his book Inspired: How to create products customers love. with each of the participants.

Marty’s workshop was a spark. From then on, I was all on fire to become the best product manager I can be. Besides Marty’s book, I read a lot of other books as well as articles I found on the internet - many of which I found useful for my work.

10 years later, by end of 2022, I had the luck to attend the Lean Product Management training by Itamar Gilad.

Lean Software Product Management Certificate

Download

Both Marty and Itamar have tons of experience on how to create successful software and tech products and businesses. To any aspiring product manager, I can only recommend to read their material, try out the methods they share, and - if possible - attend a training or workshop with them.

Speaking

Adopting agile product development and especially lean product management is not easy, especially in traditional domains. I have experienced first hand that it is in fact possible, and I am eagerly willing to share insights that I have gained and inspire others.

Education

I am a computer scientist by education with a specialization in automotive embedded software development.

2000-2006: Studied Computer Science (Informatik) at University of Ulm, Germany. Graduated with Diplom degree. Main interests in programming languages and underlying paradigms.
2004-2005: Studied Computer Science at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Main interests in parallel systems and programming languages. Graduated with Bachelor with Honors degree.
2006-2010: Conducted research in the area of automotive software engineering. Awarded with a PhD from Ulm University. Title of PhD thesis: “A Timing Model for Real-Time Control-Systems and its Application on Simulation and Monitoring of AUTOSAR Systems”.

Interested? Get in touch

If you’re interested in lean product management in general or topics such as prioritization and value-based pricing, don’t hesitate to get in touch (patrickfreyleanpm@gmail.com | freypatrick)!