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Meet our team - Nikola Štuban

TACTA Developer
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If you are curious to know what Nikola Štuban, one of our Software engineers in Zagreb answered during our latest interview #MeetOurTeam then check out the full blog post. 

TACTA: Hi Nikola, please introduce yourself in a sentence.

Nikola: Hi, my name is Nikola, nice to meet you!

TACTA: Now you’re part of our team in Zagreb but could you tell us more about what’s your background in IT industry?

Nikola: I started my professional career 5 years ago during my college as a junior java developer in Corvus Info – a company that is part of a bigger MSAN group located in Zagreb, but also has its offices throughout the SEE region. Primarily, Corvus Info is making our everyday lives better by making it easier for customers to pay for goods and services online. Following that goal, they developed CorvusPay, the most popular internet payment gateway solution in Croatia. I really enjoyed having an amazing opportunity to work on such an unbelievably sensitive piece of software, that also needs to be very scalable and highly available, and at the same time does financial transactions, communicates with the banks and card processing software, has complex architectural solutions, etc.

After more than 2 years in Corvus, where I met a lot of fantastic experts and friends, I joined the TACTA team at the beginning of 2017. Although working on payment software in Corvus was a great experience, I was always seeker for a closer contact with the people we are working for – clients of all sorts, stakeholders, but also the end-users. In my opinion, there is no higher award at the end of the project than seeing a happy, satisfied client whose life is easier and better because of the software we delivered. I think you will agree with me that software can be (hypothetically speaking) perfectly written, but if the client at the end feels like that’s not what they were seeking – we have not fulfilled our mission.

Being a bridge in overlapping that gap speaking with the clients and understanding their needs, while at the same time using best practices and technologies in development, plus understanding the whole picture of how the specific system works – that was always my ideal environment. That is exactly what was made possible for me in TACTA. I had that opportunity the first day I started working here, and I’m still enjoying it every day.

TACTA: How did you cross paths with Tacta?

Nikola: I found TACTA software engineer advertisement randomly, and it seemed interesting – so I applied for the job. After figuring out that one of my colleges from the previous company was already working here, I decided to meet the team from Zagreb and Sarajevo. The rest is history.

TACTA: IT industry is growing rapidly, do you have any advice for Software engineers to be?

Nikola: I could give a million different advice here, but the most important things (even they might sound like a cliché) are to act naturally, to be kind, professional, and not to be afraid of asking questions. Just ask anything you don’t understand, without fear. I will also mention a quote from Vlad Mihalcea (Java Champion): “The best teams I’ve ever worked on were not made of 10x developers who knew everything, but of developers that were kind, funny, humble and professional.

TACTA: Corona changed our daily routine for sure but could you tell us what your typical workday looks like before and during the Corona?

Nikola: I have to say that my typical workday is not that different at this moment than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. True, we were in sort of a lockdown during Spring this year when we all worked from home, but since June we are back in the office and more or less we continued to keep up with that practice. Sometimes we all decide to work from home for a couple of days, but that’s it. We will see what Autumn and Winter brings in terms of the pandemic, but if work from home 5 days a week will (again) became our reality, I am not concerned at all, since we already proved the ability to work extraordinary in those conditions earlier this year (and also developed some amazing apps completely in the lockdown period).

TACTA: Back to the work. Tell us what’s the most interesting challenge you’ve come across since you joined our team?

Nikola: The most interesting challenge to me is, as already mentioned, to overcome the lap between the clients with their requirements and software developers on the other side while using best practices and methodologies in the profession. I strongly believe that those two sides, if approached correctly, are not opposed, but complementary. In TACTA I had an opportunity to learn that from the best people in this area, and I still have a lot to learn.

TACTA: What’s your favorite desk snack?

Nikola: Normally I avoid having snacks on my desk since it usually ends up in peanuts all over my keyboard or monitor covered with ice cream.

TACTA: Share the secret, what’s your hidden talent?

Nikola: I would like to keep it hidden.

TACTA: When you’re not at Tacta, what’s your favorite thing to do?

Nikola: I am the father of two beautiful kids (2 years old son and 2 months old daughter), so when not occupied with work, I am trying to spend as much quality time as possible with them and my wife.


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