Dagtekin was born and raised in Hanover to a German mother and a Turkish father and moved to Ludwigsburg to study screenwriting at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, graduating in 2006.
His thesis screenplay was an retelling of the classic German play The Robbers as an action film.
[1] Dagtekin worked as a writer in the advertising industry before finding employment as a writer for various German television series, among them the soap opera Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten.
His directorial debut was Türkisch für Anfänger (2006–2009); he also wrote and directed a feature-length film with the same name in 2012.
[2] His biggest success was the 2013 film Fack ju Göhte, which was the fourth-most successful German film ever as measured by audience numbers and spawned a movie franchise with two sequels as well as a musical and a spin-off.