Since I was a kid, I have enjoyed trying out different things, and I was never afraid to get into something I hadn’t even gotten wind of. I mainly enjoyed art (music, writing, photography, painting), to which I still devote myself to a greater or lesser extent, but at the same time, I was also interested in technical things like mathematics, physics and computers.

After studying math at prep school, I enrolled in the electrical engineering program in Croatia and, after moving here to Prague, I continued at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Czech Technical University – in programming. However, there was too much math for me (I kind of lost interest), and I started to get bored. When I don’t like something, I prefer not to do it, so I decided to change my field.

I switched from computer languages to human languages, which I had enjoyed for several years. I learned them somehow naturally, mostly from songs, and when I showed up for class, the teachers, even if they were sometimes native speakers, often couldn’t answer my questions. So I enrolled in the general linguistics program at the Charles University Faculty of Arts, where I found myself in the company of people with a similar view on languages.

I spent my time there mainly at the Institute of Comparative Linguistics, attending various very interesting lectures on (Proto) Indo-European. These classes were geared more towards a master’s degree, but that did not stop me from choosing a mentor and a bachelor’s thesis topic. Of course, when it came time to finish the exams and write the bachelor’s thesis, life once again began to move in a different direction.

I decided that I didn’t envision a career in the sciences, and that it was time to quite my part-time jobs (of which I had several, including a language school, working the grill at a farmers market, playing guitar in cafes, and as a language specialist for Samsung in Poland), and start working full time.

As a Linux enthusiast, I looked for a job in that environment. After several attempts, I got one at a small company, where I wrote Ansible scripts to automate the configuration of Debian servers. It was only part-time, which didn’t work out for me financially, so I kept looking. It didn’t look promising (without experience, beginning in this field is like that), and so I started to pack my suitcase for Warsaw, where I had spent two semesters during my studies. And then came the interview for eMan.

I sat in a room like a meeting room, and applied for a job as a tester, with the prospect of moving to the position of Android developer. I guess it was the same day that they called me with a decision. It was in 2015, when the company numbered around forty people at two offices, one in Pilsen, and one in a cozy attic in Prague’s Strašnice.

That’s where I got to work. There were no divisions, team leaders, different departments, or the range of roles like we have today. In short, we did what was necessary, and I that’s how I got into design, rather than Android development. In addition to testing, which I was still mostly doing, I attended client meetings and coordinated development work as well as my fellow testers. I enjoyed it, so I was good at it.

After the company expanded and an organizational structure was introduced, sometime in 2017, I participated in defining the support management. I was in charge of the support part of the projects within the division. I left testing as there were too many projects, and it was impossible to do both well.

The new job was not always comfortable, but every day was a new challenge and required sufficient knowledge of our solutions. I liked that. Analyze, identify problems, and come up with solutions. Since then, I have been analyzing and designing solutions. I handed over the support part and, for the past few years I’ve been concentrating on development.

Nowadays I am leaving the management phase completely, and continuing solely in business analysis. The same situation as years ago – I can’t manage two very different things in the long run, and so I chose the one that fulfills me more.

My work so far in eMan has given me a lot. When I came on board, I had no idea I would be where I am today. I do not regret at all that I am not an Android developer, and I’m very grateful to my current and former colleagues (including my bosses) who have enabled me to journey through eMan. I enjoy people as such, and thus, cooperating with colleagues and clients. Of course, it’s not always a walk through a rose garden, or whatever that’s called, but it’s a relationship like any other, so you need to work on it, in which there are always certain challenges.

UPDATE 2021

Hrvoje has been promoted at eMan and is now working as a Business Analyst, congratulations.