Anything you can do, our Junior Android Engineer, Danijel can do better!

Meet our renaissance man who does and tries a little bit of everything, even veggie burgers.

Danijel is one of the most diverse people you’ll ever meet and spends his time in a million different ways.

Tell us a bit about your usual day at work!

So, I work as an Android developer, as a part of a small team – there are three of us. I can’t really tell you what my day-to-day is, as it looks different every day. One of the constants I do have though is getting feedback on my work every morning and seeing what I can improve.

In the afternoons I spend a lot of time learning on my own.

Right now I’m tackling an app that encourages you to use your phone less. It uses a whole story of a monster that needs a lot of sleep. I don’t want to spoil anything but it has some very cool animations.

I’m also working on an IoT device that follows environmental conditions in labs. It’s used by science, biotech, and healthcare companies. So, some cool stuff!

How did you end up here? What drew you to Ars Futura?

Well, I was looking for something new and there were a few companies I interviewed with and applied for at the same time as Ars Futura. I just felt better here.

There were a few companies I didn’t click with. Here, the whole process was relaxed and humane. I had just enough time to figure out and send in my task, I got a lot of feedback on how well I did. There wasn’t a long wait to hear back.

I guess there wasn’t just one thing I liked, there were a few little things during the whole process.

If you had to use three words to describe Ars Futura and your experience here so far, what would they be?

Relaxed, meticulous, and hands-on.

The people, the workflow, and the general atmosphere at Ars Futura are easy-going. There is never a hurry and the team is friendly.

Meticulous because of the way projects are done. There is a rigorous code review and a very detailed approach to the work. I can see my team is very knowledgeable and I get to soak up a little bit of that knowledge.

Finally, hands-on because you get to work with the clients right away. You have calls with people you create projects for, talk to them directly, without a middle man and complications. It’s very straightforward.

His favourite recreational activity is running. Think you can take him on?

You run a lot in your free time. Is there any other way you spend your free time?

Oh, I do a lot of things!

As you said, I run almost every day. The days I stay at home are the days when it rains outside. Actually, while we’re talking about this, I have a cross country planned out for tomorrow!

As far as other sports go, sometimes I play squash with my friends too.

I like photography so I do that whenever I can. I’m an amateur, like a semi-professional. I love taking photos of animals or races though, anything that moves, that’s in motion.

I play the guitar, I started that when I was very young.

I also play bridge! It’s a great activity for your memory.

Wow! When did you start all of this? And when do you even find time for all of this?

I started running a few years ago, in college. I wanted to have a healthy lifestyle but it was getting harder to find people for team sports like football. Everyone just started going to a new school and was finding their way. So, I started running as a solo activity.

Now, I race almost every weekend.

As far as squash goes, I started that in college too. It’s such a good way of blowing off steam at the end of the day!

I started photography while I was in a student organisation. I joined a multimedia team that was in charge of all the photos and videos for that organisation. Initially, I loved the challenge of setting up a scene, finding a cool angle, especially in rooms that were very uninteresting like classrooms.

I’ve been playing guitar since I was 9 years old. I went to music school back then. Now, I just jam and play with my friend 4 to 5 times a week.

And bridge was almost an accident. It was the 2nd or 3rd year of college and a friend and I decided to take bridge to get extracurricular points. Along the way, I really started loving it.

I don’t play bridge that often anymore, a few times a year maybe. I still like it, I’m just saving bridge, along with bowling and similar sports for when I’m too old to improve or compete at a higher level in running and other more physical sports.

Out of all the things that you do, is there anything you wish you took on?

I guess piano. My mom is a piano teacher so it wouldn’t even be that hard to learn and start playing. It’s just that I was very young when I started music so it’s hard to know which instrument I might like when I get older.

My parents wanted me to play the clarinet and I said no way! Even at nine, I knew that was a bad move.

I actually prefer the guitar, it was always my first choice. My only regret is that I didn’t start to learn how to play the piano a few years back when I had more time to do so.

Danijel hiding behind his lens as he does in his free time.

And what did you want to be when you were 10 years old?

Oh, I have no idea. Knowing myself, it was probably an athlete, probably a football player. The European kind of football. But I gave up on that pretty soon.

It was probably because we played football every day after school. I even had a club I followed. Looks like I’m nowhere near that career now!

What’s the best meal your mom makes?

My mom’s a great cook so everything she makes is quite good. I do love her lasagna though. It might be an unoriginal answer but it’s one from the heart.

What’s the bravest thing you've ever done?

I ordered a veggie burger once! It was an experience because the patty was made out of different vegetables. It didn’t taste that bad, I was just hungry again after 5 minutes.

Would not do it again!