About
I’m Zlatko — an independent software engineer and architect based in Europe. I’ve been building software professionally for over 25 years, and I’ve spent most of that time as a generalist. I like working across the stack, understanding how things connect, and figuring out the simplest way to solve hard problems.
My work usually falls somewhere between systems architecture, backend engineering, and infrastructure. I design APIs, model domains, build data pipelines, and set up the cloud infrastructure to run it all. The domains I know best are payments and fintech — card issuing and acquiring, SEPA, OpenBanking — and telecom. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time in technical leadership roles, helping teams ship better software and make better decisions.
I work as an independent contractor — have since 2010. Before that I was at HERMES SoftLab, and before that I was a teaching assistant at the University of Maribor. I still enjoy teaching; I’ve coached at DjangoGirls workshops and I like mentoring engineers when I get the chance.
What I work with
Architecture & backend: systems design, domain-driven design, API design, event modelling. Python, JVM (Java/Kotlin), .NET, TypeScript.
Infrastructure: AWS (10+ years), PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, Docker, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines.
Domains: payments & fintech (card issuing/acquiring, MasterCard, SEPA, OpenBanking), telecom.