Prof. Altay has held the Chair of Structural Analysis at the University of Siegen since 2024. Before that, he served at RWTH Aachen University as Senior Lecturer at the Chair of Structural Analysis and Structural Dynamics and as Managing Director of the Center for Wind and Earthquake Engineering. He completed his habilitation at RWTH in 2021 with research on adaptive vibration reduction, material modeling, and real-time simulations, and earned his doctorate with distinction in 2013 for his work on tuned liquid column dampers.

Prior to his academic career, he worked at Bernard Ingenieure in Vienna as a project manager and later as deputy managing director of the subsidiary RED Bernard, focusing on bridge monitoring and vibration reduction. He studied civil engineering at RWTH Aachen University with a specialization in structural engineering, after completing his schooling at TED Ankara College in Turkey.