Meet Emina, key member of the Ankora girls

She enjoys the fresh air, good coffee, and creating quality code. The enormous energy she possesses is equally used for business as well as achieving results in the private arena. The formula for her success is "great mess", and she will tell us more about that below.

What’s your role at Ankora?

Currently, I have multiple roles, depending on the project I am on. I work as a Fullstack developer, Team lead, and Product Owner. I am working on the MERN tech stack (Mongo, Express, React, and NodeJS), so I am all into Javascript. :)

My current role expects me to be “at the top of my game” always - to have direct communication with clients and their needs and to provide the end result within the time required - whether I am working on the project as a developer, or as a team leads.

At the beginning of my career path, I always thought that I would be a backend developer, because of my love of math and algorithms, but you never know where you will end up.

I love a dynamic environment, so I changed a lot of companies trying to find someplace where I have all that I am searching for: great leaders, awesome colleagues, someone who can teach me something new, interesting projects, and a company that sees the potential and hard work.

Thankfully, I found that, but it was not easy. I learned a lot while I was switching companies, I learned how to communicate with different types of people, how to behave in stressful situations and I don’t have to tell you about all the technologies I learned.

I know that if I hadn’t gone out of my comfort zone constantly, I would not have the position I have and I could not do my work as I do it now.

The most important part is that I have a lot more to learn and a lot more to grow, so that’s why I love that my company always gives me some dynamic and interesting positions where I can use my full potential.

What do you think makes you most effective as a Fullstack developer?

I enjoy being challenged and working on projects that require me to work outside my comfort and knowledge set, as continuing to learn new languages and development techniques are important to me and the success of our organization.

I am a hard-working, self-motivated person skilled in a variety of technologies and always working to improve my knowledge and engineering skills and the quality of the code. I also have experience in learning and excelling at new technologies as needed.

Continued education has allowed me to stay ahead of the curve and deliver exceptional work to each employer I’ve worked for.

I know how important the details are for a developer so my keen attention to detail and dedication to solving any problem at hand is what I can say that makes me most effective in the role I am in.

What has been your favorite project at Ankora?

In our company, what we search for are the projects that are more short-term, interesting and that use technology that are not old-fashioned so every project I land is my favourite project at that moment. :)

But looking back, if I need to separate one project, then that would be for our client from Germany and it is called Cologne Open. The project is supposed to have a platform for the women's tennis event that is going to happen in the next year.

Working on this project I learned how much details are important, how to make cutting edge design and animations and also working with a very tight schedule where our code should be in a perfect state regardless of the deadline.

At this time, I was very grateful that I work in this kind of company, whenever some kind of problem pops up, every teammate that works on the project and colleagues that are on completely other projects, all sit down to help with the current problem.

That is very helpful and makes me happy when I know that I am surrounded by these kinds of people.

Mountain and snowboarding - her greatest passion.

How do you balance your career at Ankora and friends & family?

This is very easy for me, firstly because I think of everybody in Ankora as my friends and family. Secondly, we are very aware that we should have a healthy work - life balance.

I use mostly weekends to mingle with my family and friends, and if I am not too tired, I try to organize the rest of my working days to go visit some friends or get some coffee.

Our company loves to make little team buildings for the employees and their family so we can all get to know each other.

Emina is enjoying her summer vacation.

What are your hobbies outside of Ankora?

I am a very sporty person, so I don’t like sitting very much. I have been playing volleyball for 15 years, so if I am not playing volleyball inside or outside, I love to hike.

In Bosnia we are very blessed that we are surrounded with so many mountains and nature, so every weekend I tend to go walking or hiking throughout our country.

I also enjoy views, so I always try to find some great views where I can go with my friends or family and have a picnic or just coffee, it doesn’t matter as long as we are together and with an awesome view. :)

If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?

Hmm, this is a tough one.

I think that my book would definitely have to have few sequels, because there is no way that I can write everything in one book. :)

But when I think about the name, the first thing that comes to my mind is: The great mess.

Why the mess? Well, because whenever you think that you organized everything, your private life, your work or love life, something comes up to mess up with your organization and your plans.

And why “the great”?

Because even though that mess messes up your current situation, you eventually see that without that mess your life would be dull, you would constantly be in a comfort zone and you would not learn anything, and almost always that mess grows into something better than you ever imagined.

So, yeah, “The great mess” by Emina. :)