From Low‑Code to Team Lead: Julia Keplinger, IT Team Lead at Quehenberger Logistics, on becoming the human interface in transport IT

Why this story resonates with engineers

In “Julia Keplinger, IT Team Lead bei Quehenberger Logistics,” speaker Julia Keplinger walks us through a grounded, real‑world career in logistics IT: starting with a school track that blended economics and technology, moving into low‑code work within a transport management system, and growing into the team lead of an IT competence center. From our DevJobs.at editorial perspective, the striking theme is how deliberately she embraces her role as the human interface between logistics, business stakeholders, and software development—and how curiosity, structure, and communication underpin everything she does.

This story is a strong reminder for anyone building or evolving software in complex domains: success isn’t just about code. It is about understanding requirements, testing thoroughly, documenting cleanly, and cultivating a shared language across functions.

A solid foundation: HAC, Information Management and Technology

Keplinger’s journey begins at HAC in the Information Management and Technology branch. There, she combined an economic general education with practical exposure to the digital world:

• Image and video editing
• Web design with HTML and CSS
• Programming with Visual Basic and SQL

That blend of business literacy and technical grounding echoes in her current role: she navigates comfortably between business topics and engineering, challenging requests, shaping implementation, and validating outcomes.

Straight into industry: Quehenberger Logistics as the right match

Right after school, Keplinger joined Quehenberger Logistics. The posted role required a commercial background plus basic programming skills—exactly her profile.

She started as an IT administrator in the transport management system (TMS). Her main task was to model domain logic in a low‑code environment—“with logical decisions and loops,” as she puts it. The key point: low‑code does not mean logic‑free. It requires a precise translation of rules and processes into a platform tightly coupled with day‑to‑day operations.

She was placed in a department focused on IT organization and software development, and describes how she could “learn an incredible amount on the job.” Feeling valued and motivated, she steadily built skills in project management and software support.

Stepping up: leading an IT competence center

Today, Julia Keplinger leads an IT competence center that “handles all inquiries and projects around billing.” Quehenberger Logistics is an international logistics company “represented in multiple countries,” which means new tasks and “exciting international projects” come up regularly.

This move into leadership doesn’t read as a jump—it feels like the natural outcome of her growing competence: understanding and challenging requirements, passing them to engineering, testing thoroughly, documenting, and watching processes to feed continuous improvement. That end‑to‑end mindset now anchors her leadership.

The human interface in the transport management system

Keplinger captures her project‑management role in the TMS with a line that sticks:

She breaks the work down clearly—well beyond classic second‑level support:

1. Receive new requirements
2. Challenge and analyze them
3. Handover to software development for implementation
4. Perform comprehensive tests before going into the production system
5. Create the necessary documentation
6. Monitor processes and drive continuous improvement

These six steps are familiar in many tech organizations, but they only work when communication is intentional and the goal is shared. Keplinger stresses exactly that: without a common understanding across stakeholders, projects falter.

Quality as a loop: testing, documentation, monitoring

Keplinger treats quality assurance as a closed loop. Before features reach the “real” production system, they are tested “comprehensively.” Documentation is not a side product; it is part of delivery. And after go‑live, the work continues: “To close the loop successfully, we monitor the processes and make sure we can continuously improve.”

Anyone who has worked in logistics IT recognizes the insight: business rules, operational workflows, and technical dependencies only stay aligned if we treat quality as an ongoing process, not an event.

Variety as energy: learning at the intersection

What keeps her motivated? The variety:

• One day, she is with the business units, gaining insight into the daily business.
• The next day, she is talking to developers—new insights and “aha moments.”

That pendulum between domain and engineering is not just interesting—it is her learning engine. As she puts it, what she enjoys most is being able to keep learning at work. This continuous learning is “the basis” for personal growth. She needs a “perspective” in her job, and the variety provides exactly that.

Leaving the comfort zone: driving change, not waiting for it

Project management in logistics means facing new topics constantly. Keplinger is frank about that. She also states the posture she brings to this reality:

This is more than a personal credo. It’s a playbook for interface roles: those who shape change, rather than chase it, provide orientation—and earn trust.

Mindset over certificates: IT literacy, openness, and curiosity

“Regardless of formal training,” Keplinger highlights what matters most:

• a “basic IT understanding”
• openness to new things
• genuine willingness to learn

Staying current in IT is “easier said than done.” Hence her core advice: “Don’t lose your curiosity.” Learning also happens around you: “You can learn a lot from your environment and push each other.”

The soft skills that make projects work

Keplinger points to classic, but decisive, soft skills:

• structured, self‑directed work
• analytical thinking as the “basis of project management”
• communication and collaboration that align all parties

She is explicit about the last point: “You can only be successful in project management if everyone has the same understanding.” And her closing image is memorable:

Practical takeaways for tech teams in logistics

From our DevJobs.at vantage point, Keplinger’s path translates into concrete, everyday practices:

• Treat requirements as hypotheses until they are analyzed. “Critically challenge” means separating problem, impact, and goal.
• Low‑code still demands logic. Modeling decisions and loops is craft—regardless of whether you code or configure.
• Second‑level support is a knowledge hub. Patterns that surface here inform sharper requirements and better prioritization.
• Testing is part of delivery, not just acceptance. Comprehensive pre‑production testing protects both business and engineering.
• Documentation is product maintenance. It lowers single‑person dependencies and boosts onboarding for new colleagues.
• Monitor to learn. Ongoing observation closes the loop for “continuous improvement.”
• Build a shared language. Without it, even good implementations fail in day‑to‑day use.

A career path that encourages

Keplinger’s path shows that entering via low‑code platforms can be a powerful way to understand domain logic quickly and take on responsibility. The specific technology is secondary to how rigorously you clarify requirements, assure quality, and moderate the dialogue between business and development.

If you are comfortable in that interface role, you naturally grow the capabilities leadership needs later: prioritizing, preparing decisions, anticipating risks, synchronizing expectations, and documenting outcomes so they scale.

Questions to structure any requirement

Her description of the workflow suggests a simple checklist that can frame any ticket, request, or change:

• What is the business objective? (Not: which solution is requested?)
• What downstream or adjacent processes are impacted?
• Which rules, decisions, and loops must be modeled?
• How will we test before going to the production system?
• What documentation is necessary to make knowledge durable?
• What observations will we monitor to validate success and trigger improvements?

None of this is exotic—but it works if applied consistently. That consistency is the throughline of Keplinger’s approach.

Everyday work with a learning horizon

Keplinger’s daily rhythm—between business units and developers, dotted with “aha moments”—guarantees ongoing learning. For her, learning is the basis of personal development and a non‑negotiable aspect of her job: a clear “perspective.”

For teams, that is an invitation to make learning visible: dissect requirements together, explain decisions, review outcomes, and document knowledge—not in separate events, but baked into the workflow.

Driving change as a compass for project leads

In logistics, change is the default—new countries, new customers, new processes. Keplinger’s stance to “actively drive and push” change offers a compass: be proactive about syncing expectations, calling out risks early, using room for maneuver, and folding feedback back into improvements.

Trust follows from that posture—among business stakeholders and developers alike. And trust thrives where Keplinger’s recurring theme holds: a “shared understanding” and a “shared language.”

Conclusion: Speak the same language—beyond code

“Julia Keplinger, IT Team Lead bei Quehenberger Logistics” leaves little doubt: success in logistics IT lives where people take domain logic seriously, separate problems from solutions, and treat technical delivery as a team sport.

Keplinger’s career shows how far curiosity, structure, and analytical thinking can take you—from early HTML/CSS and Visual Basic in school, through low‑code workflows in a transport management system, to leading an IT competence center.

In her own words: it is about meeting the other person and speaking “the same language”—“and I’m not talking about a programming language.” That’s how changing requirements turn into durable results.

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