-- about_me

About Me

I'm a Database Administrator & Data Engineer who loves building reliable, scalable data systems that actually work in production

Open to workDownload Résumé

-- summary

What I Do

I'm a Database Administrator and Data Engineer who specializes in designing and maintaining high-performance database systems and data pipelines. My toolkit includes relational databases (PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL), distributed streaming platforms (Kafka), and modern data orchestration tools (Apache Airflow).

Over my career, I've tackled some tough problems—like implementing high-availability PostgreSQL clusters with 99.99% uptime, and building real-time CDC pipelines that process millions of events every day. I understand database internals, replication mechanisms, and performance optimization in a way that comes from getting my hands dirty with real systems.

My approach blends technical depth with practical focus. I build systems that are fast, yes—but also maintainable, observable, and resilient when things go wrong. Every architecture choice I make considers long-term scalability and what it'll be like for the team that has to run it at 3am.

-- experience

Experience

SELECT role, company, period FROM experience ORDER BY start_date DESC;

  1. Burai

    • Lead Database ArchitectApr 2026 – Present
    • Own the database architecture strategy and set standards for schema design, high availability, and disaster recovery across services.
    • Design fault-tolerant PostgreSQL topologies with streaming replication and automated failover for mission-critical workloads.
    • Establish backup/recovery, security hardening, and observability baselines so systems fail gracefully and recover on their own.
    • Lead schema and performance reviews, and mentor engineers on database internals and query optimization.

  2. Unifonic

    • Senior Database EngineerApr 2026 – Present
    • Operate and tune high-throughput data platforms powering large-scale, real-time messaging and customer-engagement workloads.
    • Build change-data-capture pipelines with Debezium and Kafka to propagate database changes to downstream systems with sub-second latency.
    • Drive query optimization, indexing strategy, and configuration tuning to keep latency low as data volume grows.
    • Handle capacity planning, monitoring, and reliability engineering to sustain uptime under peak load.

  3. Raiffeisen Bank BiH

    • Senior Database EngineerOct 2025 – Apr 2026
    • Database Administrator Team LeadApr 2023 – Apr 2026
    • Database SpecialistJul 2022 – Oct 2025

  4. Infobip

    • Database AdministratorJan 2021 – Jun 2022

  5. Raiffeisen Bank BiH

    • Database AdministratorSep 2019 – Jan 2021
    • Junior Database AdministratorJan 2018 – Sep 2019
    • IT AdministratorMar 2017 – Jan 2018

  6. Intesa Sanpaolo Banka BiH

    • IT AdministratorNov 2014 – Sep 2016

-- education

Education

  • University "Džemal Bijedić" in Mostar
    Faculty of Information Technologies — Information Technology
    2022 – 2025
  • Cisco Networking Academy
    CCNA
    2014 – 2015

-- certifications

Certifications

  • Academy Accreditation — Databricks Fundamentals
  • Knowledge Badge — Build Data Pipelines with Lakeflow Spark Declarative Pipelines
  • Knowledge Badge — Data Ingestion with Lakeflow Connect

-- expertise

Areas of Expertise

What I'm really good at in database systems and data engineering

Database Administration

PostgreSQL and SQL Server administration, backup/recovery, security, monitoring, and capacity planning.

Performance Tuning

Query optimization, indexing strategies, execution plan analysis, and system configuration tuning for maximum performance.

High Availability

Designing fault-tolerant clusters with replication, automatic failover, and load balancing for mission-critical systems.

Data Streaming & CDC

Real-time data pipelines using Kafka and Debezium for change data capture and event-driven architectures.

ETL/ELT Pipelines

Building scalable data pipelines with Apache Airflow, Python, and modern orchestration frameworks.

Cloud & DevOps

Experience with AWS, Azure, Docker, Kubernetes, and infrastructure as code for database deployments.

-- philosophy

How I Think About Engineering

Reliability First

I put reliability and data integrity first in every architecture decision. Systems should fail gracefully and recover on their own. For transactional systems, zero data loss isn’t optional—it’s the baseline.

Observability Matters

You can’t fix what you can’t see. I believe comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting aren’t optional. Every system I build provides clear insights into its health and performance.

Automation & Efficiency

I automate repetitive tasks to cut down human error and give people time for higher-value work. Infrastructure as code, automated testing, and CI/CD are table stakes in my book.

Documentation Matters

Good documentation is as important as good code. I make sure architecture decisions, runbooks, and operational procedures are well-documented so teams can share knowledge and get up to speed quickly.

-- tech

Technologies I Work With

The tools I use regularly

Databases

PostgreSQLSQL ServerMySQLRedisMongoDBElasticsearch

Data Engineering

Apache AirflowKafkaDebeziumDatabricksApache SparkPythondbtC#

Infrastructure

LinuxDockerKubernetesTerraformAnsibleAWSAzurePowerShell