After finishing his studies of law in Mainz, Germany, and Charlottesville, Virginia (USA), Alexander Tettenborn first worked as lawyer in a law firm in Cologne. In 1990, he entered civil service for the Federal government of Germany.
After having served several posts in the field of Education and Technology at the Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF) until 1998, he was transferred to Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, now Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi). There he had served several posts in the field of administration, foreign trade (MENA-Region) and ICT/Media-law.
Since March 2012, Alexander is the Head of „Development of digital technologies“ unit at the BMWi. There he is responsible for R&D in the fields of Internet of services (Cloud, Big Data, Smart Services), IoT (Autonomik and Industry 4.0, PAICE – additive manufacturing, engineering), Artificial Intelligence (contest/program – 2019/2020-2024 program); ICT architecture of electromobility as well as for the area of ICT-Start ups (start-up contest) and transfer of the projects to SMEs/international cooperation (smart data forum; since 9/2019: Forum digital Technologies).