Ten years journey of trust, collaboration, and respect
by ProductDock
As we continue to honor the team members who have dedicated a decade or more to ProductDock, we are delighted to present the next installment of our “ProductDock’s career reflections” interview series.
This time, we talked with our software engineer, Milica Živkov. Her versatility enables her to enjoy different tasks and share knowledge with us whenever she can.
What do you like most about your role?
I value the versatility of my role, as it isn’t strictly defined. I participate in product discovery sessions with clients, deal with architecture, and mentor young, talented students. My primary focus, however, remains on programming.
How did you grow at ProductDock?
Over the years in ProductDock, I was often put in front of clients who needed to be advised on solving their business issues, which was quite different from programming that started with Jira tickets. It pushed me to expand the knowledge required for that project-starting phase. When I first joined the company, known as codecentric back then, it truly set a high standard for software quality that influenced me from the start and continued to do so for many years. I don’t wanna imply it was exclusive to ProductDock, software quality generally started to be the thing, but in codecentric all these practices were taken on seriously. Codecentric introduced me to various trainings that greatly influenced the way I work. One of them was given by Sandro Mancuso, the pioneer of the software craftsmanship movement.
What is your best ProductDock memory?
Dubrovnik. We went there twice—the first time to celebrate the big codecentric anniversary and the second time to mark the founding of ProductDock. On both occasions, we had a wonderful time.
What is the secret of staying in the same company for more than 10 years?
To put it simply, it feels good to work here most of the time. I have had the opportunity to work on several projects, and every project has been like a fresh start. I have had the opportunity to gain knowledge -by working with skillful and knowledgeable colleagues or by having access to various learning platforms and training programs. Moreover, mutual respect and trust have always existed in our company, which is really important to me.
Who inspired you professionally?
I’ve already mentioned Sandro Mancuso; his session gave me this new perspective on software development. But I also find working with younger colleagues inspiring because they bring enthusiasm, and their questions often reveal gaps in my own knowledge.
Share a book list that helps your expertise.
Most of the content I find on the O’Reilly learning platform, so, I’ll pick something from there: – Sam Newman: both Monolith to Microservices and Building Microservices
– Neal Ford and Mark Richards (Software Architecture superstream, Software architecture by example, Architectural Katas …)
– Building Multi-Tenant SaaS Architectures by Tod Golding from Amazon
– Get Your Hands Dirty on Clean Architecture by Tom Hombergs – User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton
– Event Storming video by Allen Holub
How and with whom do you like to spend your free time?
It depends on the mood really, usually it is doing something fun with my kid and my nieces. I enjoy attending concerts or gigs whenever I can spare the time and energy, or simply indulging in endless internet scrolling. One of my favorite rituals is listening to the Dasko & Mladja podcast.
Where would you go if you could visit anywhere you have never been?
Probably New York.
What kind of music do you prefer listening to?
According to my last.fm account, my top artist is David Bowie, and my top track is Slon lepotan dondolan by Minja Subota.
If you were not a programmer, what would you be?
I can hardly imagine myself doing anything else. Once, I had the idea to study biology because I gained interest in reading Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, and similar popular science authors, but it wasn’t really serious.
What are the three things you like the most at ProductDock?
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