Trucking Hub

In my role as a startup CTO, I'm focused on the following:

- Built a company development department from the ground up.
- Setting up a local office in Belgrade.
- Growing engineering team from 0 to 10+ exceptional talents.
- Owner of the technology vision and roadmap.
- Driving collaboration with external partners.
- Laying the foundations of scaling the technical platform and scaling the teams.
- Establishing and executing technology strategy for delivering the most possible outcome for our customers.
- Growing a healthy, collaborative engineering culture aligned with the company values.
- Driving engineering excellence and ensuring teams are delivering high-quality results.
- Delivering the flagship product according to expectations.
- Ensuring the product roadmap is well thought out and feasible for each team.
- Understanding the teams’ impediments and removing them.
- Defining clear career (progression) paths.
- Regular 1:1 meetings.
- Helping people grow and progress in their careers.
- Regular, constructive performance feedback.
- Conducting performance and salary reviews.
- Ensuring that individuals are energized and motivated by their work.
- Organizing training management.
- Solution architecture.
- Introduction of DevOps mindset.
- Implementation of .NET/Azure solutions / PoCs.
- Administration of Azure/Azure DevOps.
- Definition of QA procedures.

Chief Technology Officer

Tech World With Milan

I help engineers, managers, and architects build great careers, products, and teams.

My articles have been viewed 300M+ times with 400K+ followers on various platforms, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Substack, and Medium.

Join my free newsletter:

Author

First Principles Consultancy

I provide coaching services for engineering leaders and engineers, including interviewing, management, organizational structure, leading teams, and career development.

In particular:

- Architecture consulting: I help companies design robust, cloud-based solutions that grow efficiently. I do audits, design reviews, and on-demand troubleshooting.

- Leadership & management coaching: I guide new and seasoned tech leaders in building and managing high-performing teams. I also coach on delegation, feedback culture, conflict resolution, and more.

- Team mentorship & training: I provide customized training sessions on coding best practices, engineering standards, DevOps, and Agile methods and mentor teams on personal growth and collaboration.

- Organizational design & culture: I advise on setting up engineering structures, processes, and a culture that fosters openness, innovation, and continuous learning.

- Product strategy: I collaborate with product teams to clarify priorities, set achievable milestones, and align tech choices with business goals.

 - Workshops & Masterclasses: I host events on topics such as “Transitioning from Engineer to Leader,” “Cloud Architecture Fundamentals,” “Building a Resilient Engineering Culture”, and more.

Also, I serve as a fractional CTO or tech advisor for select companies.

📩 DM me for more details.

Engineering Leadership Coach

3MD Studio

We partner with businesses to transform their ideas into scalable, high-quality software solutions. Combining your industry expertise with our technical know-how, we build reliable, efficient products while you focus on growing your business. 

My role is:
- Recruiting and working with a talent network
- Line management of 10+ employees, stakeholder, and vendor management
- Overseeing product and service offerings
- Delivery leadership & project management of mission-critical projects
- Managing and maintaining relationships with C-Level Management
- Ensuring that the quality of delivery of projects stays on a high level
- Troubleshooting and problem management to ensure the desired outcome
- Cultivating a strong company and leadership culture
- Ensuring compliance with industry regulations
- Software Architecture, Cloud & Consulting topics

Interim CEO

Zühlke Group

Worked on different projects with various clients, from small startups to large international and Big Tech companies.

Accomplishments:

- Completed responsibilities as a thought leader with expertise in Software and solution architecture, .NET, Azure, and Cloud.
- Acquired a thorough understanding of the ecosystems and fundamental guiding principles of software development.
- Supported the Zühlke Community and promoted a productive workplace where team members inspire one another. shared use cases, frequently ran technical training, and generated materials to support ongoing professional development.
- Increased social media traffic and digital exposure by attending conferences and writing articles for LinkedIn, blogs, magazines, and portals.
- Offered customized mentoring for team members, sharing important industry insights to produce deeper comprehension and considerably increase overall skill efficiency while taking on projects.

Worked on customer projects as a Software/Solution Architect and team lead in distributed teams with Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the UK, and Singapore. My responsibilities include:

- Creating the IT architectures for cutting-edge, ground-breaking software solutions and giving all clients high-level strategic advice.
- Cloud architecture (Azure).
- DevOps.
- Requirements engineering.
- Code reviews.
- Different roles in internal organization.
- Coaching less experienced colleagues/mentoring.
- Conducting technical interviews.

Customer projects:

- Advanced speech recognition engine (FAANG company): Speech-to-text recognition engine in the Cloud. Tech stack: SAFe, .NET, Azure, Azure DevOps, WCF, SQL Server.

Principal Consultant

Accomplishments:

- Built and led a group-wide Azure and AWS teams (CoP) for the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Singapore with 170+ people, enabling regular meetings and knowledge exchange.

- Built and led a local Cloud topic group (CoP) for Serbia, Bulgaria, and Portugal with 150+ people, certified 20+ people for Azure and AWS, set it up from the ground up, and created group-wide Azure and AWS teams with 170+ people.

My responsibilities included:
- Defining group mission and goals.
- Defining collaboration and communication channels.
- Organizing topic group events and internal organization.
- Sharing knowledge internally and externally.
- Defining tools to be used for communication and knowledge sharing.
- Engaging in regular communication with team members and others.
- Driving Cloud topic towards capability.
- Maintain relations with other cloud capabilities on the group level.
- Job profile definition with HR.
- Searching for the right people.
- Conducting technical interviews.

Group Cloud Capability Lead

Accomplishments:

- Recieved an overall score of 3.6/4 from peers.
- Got good feedback overall.

People management:
- Helping people grow and progress in their careers;
- Regular 1:1 meetings;
- Coaching and mentoring;
- Performance appraisal and feedback;
- Regular, constructive performance feedback
- Evaluations, defining goals, OKR & SMART Objectives;
- Mediation and conflict resolution;
- Defining job profiles;

Team Lead / Engineering Manager

Accomplishments:
- Led a team of developers from the Belgrade side in a distributed setup with Switzerland colleagues.
- Enabled successful project distribution for a major client.
- Led Thought Leadership initiative for ZRS.
- Given multiple talks/workshops on different topics (architecture, cloud, testing, clean code, mentoring, goals, etc.).

Worked on customer projects as part of a distributed .NET DEV team with Switzerland and Singaporean colleagues. My responsibilities included:
- Team architect.
- Team lead (Beg).
- Requirement engineering.
- Code reviews.
- Coaching/mentoring.
- Software/solution architecture, design, testing and implementation.
- Conducting technical interviews.

Customer projects:
- Integrated investment advisory platform for relationship managers of a private bank. Tech stack: Javascript/TypeScript, C#/.NET, SQL Server, Entity Framework, Stored procedures, AngularX, RxJS, ngrx, Log4net, Jobbr. The biggest account and project in Zuhlke Group: 50+ people, 1mil+ LOC.

Lead Software Architect

Worked on customer projects as part of a distributed .NET DEV team with Switzerland and Singaporean colleagues. My responsibilities included:
- Software architecture, design, testing, and implementation.
- Preparing bids for projects from the technical side.
- Conducting technical interviews.

Customer projects:
- Insurance Portal for Corporate Customers. Tech stack: C#, ASP.NET MVC/Core/Web-API, Entity Framework, IdentityServer3, SQL Server Integration Services, RavenDB, Kendo UI, TypeScript, LESS, TFS. (November 2017.-June 2018.). 600k+ LOC.
- GUI for Media Processing System. Tech stack: WPF, MVVM, C#, Feature-Based, FluentAPI, MVVMLight, ReFit, Aspose, SourceAFIS. (June 2018. - September 2018.)

Expert Software Engineer

I operated as an independent software development expert, architect, mentor, trainer, and programmer. 

As I have done in previous roles, I’m assisting my international clients in modernizing their software development. I am at my best working with projects and teams that need a boost in collaboration, performance, and technology. 

Some examples of my work include:

- As an agile coach, I turn around organizations from traditional ways of working to Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and continuous delivery. 
- As a career coach, I guide engineers, engineering managers, tech leads, etc.
- As a Fractional CTO, I implement new technologies in organizations, such as software architectures, modern modeling tooling, RESTful services, APIs, C#/.NET, functional programming, and Cloud technologies, such as Azure and Azure DevOps.
- As an architecture coach, I help organizations restructure unmaintainable legacy code bases to new, flexible, and tested software architectures.
- As a software architect, I create front-end and back-end frameworks and code using HTML5/CCS3, Bootstrap, Angular, C#, .NET, ASP.NET MVC, Xamarin, and WPF.
- As a mentor and teacher, I present seminars and (in-house) training courses on a variety of topics such as  Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Software Development, Software Architecture, Microservices, Continuous Delivery, Design Patterns, Domain-Driven Design, Modeling and UML, Clean Code, .NET, and Testing.

Independent Consultant, Owner

Electric Power Industry of Serbia

Accomplishments:

I led an organization of 40+ people who worked on the development of different software solutions by using Microsoft and Java-based, as well as some legacy tech stacks. Some of the applications we implemented are:

• Vehicle maintenance management system (Web - 100+ users).
• Procurement solution includes elements of the plan to implement procurement, contracts, etc. (Web - 500+ users).
• Project management team member for SAP ERP implementation, acting as an internal auditor (June 2014.  - December 2015.).
• Oracle UCM - document management system (support lead).

I was responsible for:
• Leading main software implementation projects.
• People management of 40+ people.
• Helping people grow and progress in their careers 
• Regular, constructive performance feedback
• Harmonising engineering processes, driving consistent standards and approaches throughout the team.
• Product development.
• Keeping the team updated with the latest software development technologies and methodologies.
• Coaching the team on agile software development best practices. 
• Developing short and long-term strategies for the team to meet the company's goals and objectives. Planning and monitoring the successful implementation of this strategy.
• Teaching and training software developers, organizing courses, etc.
• Overseeing internal product development.
• Supervising other software projects.
• Defining implementation times and deadlines (for development and support).
• Leading technical support.
• Defining new internal organizational structure.
• Internal staff recruiting.
• Planning and tracking procurements for a department.
• Management of the commission for the company's inventory of concessions, intellectual property, and software.
• I administered and configured the SQL Server 2008/2014 (backup, migrations, maintenance), Team Foundation Server, and Application Server (IIS).
• Management of company's internal portal and website.

Head of Engineering

Built and led a department from the ground up, hiring people, setting up processes, technology, etc.

Software architect and a team leader for software engineers developing ERP-based applications using .NET stack and also:

• Built a team of developers and business analysts from 0 to 10+ people.
• Defined standards, tools and processes that were used for solution development within company.
• Line management.
• Teaching and training software developers, organizing courses, etc.
• Design of the solutions architecture.
• Framework design.
• Product development management.
• Defining new internal organizational structure.
• Internal staff recruiting.
• Scrum Master.

Implemented projects by using .NET technology stack: 
• Materials management (Web - 400+ users)
• Asset management (Web - 300+ users)
• Invoicing (Web - 10+ users)

Head of Software Development Department

Senior software engineer and a team leader for following implemented projects (.NET stack):
• Storehouse calculation distributed application (Desktop), architecture and implementation (ASP.NET + C# + TFS + MS SQL Server).
• SQL Server Integration Services-based data migration from legacy system.
•  Administration and configuration of SQL Server 2008 (backup, migrations, maintenance), Team Foundation Server and IIS.
• Creation of procedures for data backup, programming style, user requirements form, etc.

Senior Software Engineer and Team Leader

Software developer for following projects (Java stack):
• Invoicing (Eclipse + EJB3 + Hibernate + Spring framework + Acegi Security + Struts 2 + JUnit 4 + JMock + JFreeChart + JasperReports + SVN + JIRA + Patterns).
• ArchiDoc Web Document Management System (Netbeans + EJB2 + Struts + JSP + JUnit 3 + Patterns).
• Other projects ( CMS for Web portal & CD presentation, E-commerce Web site implementation in PHP/MySQL,...) .
 • Teaching and training software developers, organizing courses, etc. Held Java course for 40 software developers (Basic, Advanced, Web, J2EE). Duration: one year.
 • Consultant for various Java projects.

Software Engineer

GOOD OLD AI Research Network

- I worked as a researcher during post-graduate studies in modeling and metamodeling, model transformations, rule languages, and business models. 

- Published 20+ papers in international conferences and journals and received awards for best papers. 

- Involved in international conferences and journals as an editorial board member, program chair, reviewer, and program committee member. 

- Cited 450+ times.

- Google Scholar h-index: 11.

- Member of ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, and GOAI Research group.

Researcher

Abell Soft

Implemented projects:
• E-Store application for on-line selling of books in PHP/MySQL. 
 • Complete code and design of a business packages FinanceBusiness for small and medium companies in Microsoft Visual C++, using MFC, Win32, PHP and MS Access (DAO, ODBC). 
 • Coded, designed and managed multiple web sites using HTML, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, visual editors like Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft FrontPage so as other graphical tools. 
 • Active IT System consulting for large number of companies.

Junior Software Developer

Municipality of Lajkovac

System Administrator

Chief Roadblock Remover and Learning Enabler | Software Development Expert | Leadership & Career Coach | Speaker | Author | Building great products, building great teams!

🎯 I'm a result-driven 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿, 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁, 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵, 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 with 20 years of professional experience in different domains, including the 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆, 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿, 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼. 

🚀 My mission is to provide 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 focused on architecture, the best agile practices, passionately 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵-𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 to deliver innovative, 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵-𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀, working closely with customers and developing software products on different platforms.

🎓 As a 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿, I published 20+ papers and book chapters in international conferences and journals (having more than 440+ citations and h-index 11 on Google Scholar), obtaining 𝗣𝗵.𝗗. 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀. Also, I have been involved as a 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿—member of ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, and GOAI Research group. 

🧑‍💼 I work as a professional 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵-𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 for people in engineering leadership positions.

✍🏻 Additionally, I am a 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿, who helps more than 400,000 engineers, managers, and architects to build great careers, products, and teams through various platforms and channels.

𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗲:

📌 Leadership
📌 Team building
📌 Making things efficient
📌 Creating self-contained systems
📌 Be highly organized and make others too
📌 Focus on strategy/goals
📌 Make things happen
📌 Career Coaching
📌 Mentoring
📌 Line management
📌 Effective client communication
📌 Software Architecture
📌 DevOps mindset
📌 Cloud (Azure)
📌 .NET/C# (ASP.NET/WPF)
📌 SQL Server/NoSQL
📌 Agile methods (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe)
📌 Product/project management

📲 Feel free to contact me here via LinkedIn (DM)!

Dr Milan Milanović

LinkedIn today - everyone is a 25-year-old senior software architect

We have people with 0-1 year of experience who write about software engineering, architecture, and more.

They have yet to see or work with most of this stuff.

I started writing with 20 years of experience in roles ranging from software engineer to architect and consultant, 30+ projects, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Still, I was unsure if my writing would be valuable enough for readers.

When you start following someone, check their credibility outside LinkedIn and other social networks first. Do they have the credibility to talk about this? 

I know this because many people copied my work, style, and topics. The latter is harder to catch, but it is wrong. This is not the right address to follow if someone doesn't talk from their own experience.

LinkedIn is not real life! It is an abstraction, and it can be very elusive.

Chief Roadblock Remover and Learning Enabler | Helping 400K+ engineers and leaders grow through better software, teams & careers | Author | Speaker | Leadership & Career Coach

Don't worry. There will be a place for everyone.

Learn AI and use it as your leverage to improve your work.

𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱.

You can learn from experts by working with them or by reading their work. Books scale better.

Here are 30 books organized by what they'll help you master.

𝟭. 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹:
🔹 The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt
🔹 Modern Software Engineering by David Farley
🔹 Code Complete by Steve McConnell
🔹 Grokking Simplicity by Eric Normand
🔹 Software Engineering at Google by Titus Winters

𝟮. 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺𝘀:
🔹 Grokking Algorithms by Aditya Bhargava
🔹 Algorithms by Sanjoy Dasgupta
🔹 The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth
🔹 Data Structures and Algorithms Made Easy by Narasimha Karumanchi
🔹 Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein

𝟯. 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀:
🔹 Designing Distributed Systems by Brendan Burns
🔹 Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann
🔹 Distributed Systems by Maarten van Steen and Andrew Tanenbaum
🔹 Distributed Algorithms by Nancy Lynch

𝟰. 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀:
🔹 Clean Code by Robert C. Martin
🔹 Design Patterns by Gang of Four
🔹 Refactoring by Martin Fowler
🔹 The Effective Engineer by Edmond Lau
🔹 The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt

𝟱. 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮:
🔹 Data Modeling Essentials by Graeme Simsion
🔹 Learning SQL by Alan Beaulieu
🔹 Fundamentals of Data Engineering by Joe Reis and Matt Housley

𝟲. 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀:
🔹 The DevOps Handbook by Gene Kim
🔹 Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble and David Farley
🔹 Accelerate by Nicole Forsgren
🔹 Effective DevOps by Jennifer Davis and Ryn Daniels

𝟳. 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴:
🔹 Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce
🔹 Unit Testing by Vladimir Khorikov
🔹 Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns by Vladimir Khorikov
🔹 Test Driven Development by Kent Beck
🔹 Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers

𝟴. 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲:
🔹 Software Architecture Patterns by Mark Richards
🔹 Clean Architecture by Robert C. Martin
🔹 Software Architecture: The Hard Parts by Neal Ford and Mark Richards
🔹 Building Microservices by Sam Newman
🔹 Domain-Driven Design by Eric Evans

𝟵. 𝗠𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗜:
🔹 The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book by Andriy Burkov
🔹 Designing Machine Learning Systems by Chip Huyen
🔹 AI Engineering by Chip Huyen

𝟭𝟬. 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽:
🔹 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
🔹 Drive by Daniel Pink
🔹 The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo
🔹 Radical Candor by Kim Scott

𝟭𝟭. 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁:
🔹 How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
🔹 Deep Work by Cal Newport
🔹 The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

👉 Subscribe to my newslettter to get curated 100+ Books That Changed My Life mini-book: https://lnkd.in/dnmKdmRp

Having access to smarter people is a blessing, not a threat

Early in my career, I used to feel uncomfortable when surrounded by people who knew more than me.

I worried it exposed my gaps.

But over the years, I’ve learned the opposite is true:
Being surrounded by smarter people is the fastest way to grow.

Here’s why:

𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗮𝗿.

You see new standards of thinking, execution, and leadership.

𝟮. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿.

A single conversation can save you weeks of trial and error.

𝟯. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗳𝘀.

When you watch someone solve problems you thought were “impossible,” your own ceiling shifts.

𝟰. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆.

Growth requires admitting what you don’t know—and being willing to learn.

The real threat isn’t being the least experienced person in the room.
The real threat is staying in rooms where you’re the smartest.

So don’t shy away from people who outshine you.
Seek them out.
Learn from them.
And then, pass that knowledge on.

 👉 Who’s someone smarter than you who shaped your growth?

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿

We've all heard the saying, "Practice makes perfect." But when it comes to software engineering, the real growth happens outside of the 9-to-5 grind. 

You can become a good software engineer through daily work assignments and on-the-job experience. 

However, the path to true greatness lies in what you do after work hours.

The harsh reality is that workplace projects often involve constraints, deadlines, and compromises (read Scrum and Jira :). 

You may only sometimes have the luxury to explore cutting-edge technologies, experiment with novel approaches, or dive deep into complex problem-solving. 

This is where your projects and self-driven learning come into play.

After work, you can stretch your skills, explore new territories, and tackle challenges that challenge your curiosity. 

It's an opportunity to learn at your own pace, make mistakes without consequences, and push the boundaries.

So, if you aspire to become a great software engineer, don't limit your growth to the office walls. 

Dedicating time after work to personal projects, contributing to open-source initiatives, attending meetups or conferences, or playing with new languages or libraries is crucial.

Do you agree?

Milan Jovanovic Tech

Founder

Upwork

Senior Software Engineer

HTEC Group

Responsible for major architectural and software design decisions in various in-house projects. Acting as a technical advisor to teams solving challenging problems. Also working as the lead developer for an order placement and processing application for a luxury kitchen manufacturing company.

Application Architect Associate

Responsible for major architectural and design decisions in order placement and processing application for a luxury kitchen manufacturing company. The system has a set of unique challenges from a domain and technology perspective.

I developed a robust Outbox / Inbox messaging system for our event-driven application. Also commonly known as the "Outbox pattern".
The application is split into independent modules, which interact with each other by publishing events.
We needed to process outgoing messages "out of process", to avoid distributed transactions.
We also needed to ensure "at least once" message delivery, and ensure idempotency on the receiving side.

Another one of my responsibilities was application performance, where I focused on the following:
- Ensuring all our SQL queries were optimally written, often investigating the execution plan to make adjustments
- Creating the optimal database indexes for queries processing a large number of records
- Troubleshooting and optimizing algorithms

Developing an order placement and processing system for a luxury kitchen manufacturing company. The application has a set of unique challenges from a domain and technology perspective.

The domain itself is very rich and complex, which is why we have adopted DDD for modeling the core of the system.

We are developing the application itself using the Modular Monolith architecture.
Each Module is implemented with Clean Architecture and CQRS.
Modules interact with each other using messaging, through RabbitMQ.

Ingsoftware

My responsibilities as a technical lead at Ingsoftware are managing a small development team that consists of front-end and back-end developers. I'm in charge of making important technical decisions aimed at providing the highest quality technical solutions for the present business problems. Communicating with clients (and sometimes stakeholders) on a daily basis and making sure everything is going smoothly.

Apart from these responsibilities, I also regularly take part in the interviewing process for new prospective candidates, as well as work as a mentor for our .NET interns.

Technical Lead

My responsibilities as a software developer at Ingsoftware are:
- Back-end development using C# with ASP.NET Core and .NET Core frameworks,
- Database modeling utilizing SQL Server,
- Proposing efficient and scalable solutions for client requirements,
- Providing accurate LOE estimates for client requirements,
- Mentoring less-experienced teammates and helping them improve (something I truly enjoy),
- Communicating directly with clients,
- Application deployment.

Apart from these responsibilities, I also regularly take part in the interviewing process for new prospective candidates, as well as work as a mentor for our .NET interns.

I won a paid internship through an entry exam that Ingsoftware organized at the annual Job Fair that is held at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in Niš. The internship helped me learn many new skills that later paved my way into my first employment.

During the internship my responsibilities were:
- Back-end development using C# with ASP.NET MVC and .NET Framework,
- Front-end development using plain vanilla Javascript and Boostrap as a UI framework,
- Using SQL Server for database creation.

.NET Intern

Practical .NET and Software Architecture Tips | Microsoft MVP

Hi there! 👋

I'm a senior software engineer, primarily working in the .NET ecosystem.

Things I talk about on LinkedIn:
- C# and .NET ❤
- Software engineering and architecture 
- Distributed systems and how to build them
- Databases and optimization techniques
- Career and personal growth

One of my goals (i̶s̶) was to become a Microsoft MVP in Developer Technologies.
I became an MVP in March of 2023.

If this sounds interesting, let's connect!

Milan Jovanović

If you're a developer who writes code daily, remember these 5 things:

- First, make it work
- Then make it pretty
- Add safety with lots of tests
- Stay away from over-engineering
- Refactor if needed (and it usually is needed)

Refactoring is your superpower for cleaning up code.

Here are some proven refactoring techniques I use to write better code: https://lnkd.in/e3Z-XBNk

Do you think clean code is overrated?

linkedin.com

li_at

JSESSIONID

LinkedIn

Talks about #csharp, #dotnet, #databases, #softwareengineering, and #softwarearchitecture

I struggled to master Clean Architecture and DDD.

So I prepared 33 lessons to share everything I learned with you.

𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹𝘀

- Project setup - https://lnkd.in/dqZeKdvU
- Minimal APIs - https://lnkd.in/eKsvdyeQ
- Dependency injection - https://lnkd.in/e7KK27d9
- CA + Document database - https://lnkd.in/eEywJHFS
- Project setup from scratch - https://lnkd.in/dvAVHzzg
- 4 Best practices for new project - https://lnkd.in/dPfxPfuY
- Structured logging - https://lnkd.in/dRT4EGvr
- Message queues - https://lnkd.in/dvSsgAyn

𝗗𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻-𝗗𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

- Rich Domain model - https://lnkd.in/drbTK9_W
- Entities - https://lnkd.in/dQzuqzR6 
- Value objects - https://lnkd.in/d4iWcybq
- Aggregate root - https://lnkd.in/dxb6dx-y
- Domain validation - https://lnkd.in/dZMjb5_v
- Domain model tradeoffs - https://lnkd.in/d2_9fBSv
- Repository pattern - https://lnkd.in/dq-mst-P
- Specification pattern - https://lnkd.in/enP-8n9i
- Unit of work - https://lnkd.in/e668P6wK
- Smart Enums - https://lnkd.in/efq34FS7
- Snapshot pattern - https://lnkd.in/eubBfFk4
- Strongly typed IDs - https://lnkd.in/dpgZ4gBw
- Anemic Domain model - https://lnkd.in/dmrGQTY9
- DDD modeling - https://lnkd.in/dnvgNgfg
- DDD + EF mapping - https://lnkd.in/dmSXbxqt
- Incomplete aggregates - https://lnkd.in/dBDQhRNQ
- Double dispatch - https://lnkd.in/dK4jQT7g

𝗖𝗤𝗥𝗦

- CQRS Fundamentals - https://lnkd.in/dKYS87-6
- Validation /w Result - https://lnkd.in/dZuc-6MM
- Validation /w Exception - https://lnkd.in/dqh9ZcAD
- Read models - https://lnkd.in/dD5W3FDn
- UoW pipeline - https://lnkd.in/dzwg6Uad
- The "Truth" on CQRS - https://lnkd.in/dbpFQ-2f
- CQRS Query side - https://lnkd.in/dKfXaeNx
- Materialized views - https://lnkd.in/dmfjhMKR

Hope this is helpful!

If you liked this, you should join The .NET Weekly - my newsletter with 74,000+ engineers.

You'll get a complete Clean Architecture template for free when you sign up.

Join here → https://lnkd.in/ec6jnhfJ

Have an awesome day!

I wrote two almost identical SQL queries.

One of them was 451x times faster.

I was implementing cursor pagination.

And I thought... Why don't I add an index to make my query faster?

This is where things went terribly wrong.

We have an "Index Scan" using the composite index. Seems good.

But the query is even slower than it was without an index.

What gives?

This might be because the dataset is too small to benefit from the index.

But that wasn't it...

What if we were to use a tuple comparison in SQL?

Finally, the index is working - 0.668 ms.

The query optimizer cannot determine whether the composite index can be used for row-level comparison.

However, the index is effectively used with a tuple comparison.

If I didn't look at the query plan, I wouldn't have figured this out.

Here's the complete performance analysis: https://lnkd.in/exXAbXzN

How often do you examine your SQL queries?

---
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What is RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)?

Here's how it can help with your authorization policies.

RBAC stands for Role-Based Access Control.

Here's how RBAC works:
- Roles are assigned a set of permissions
- Users are granted roles, and thus permissions
- Permissions decide what a user can or can't do

What's the benefit?

One problem I always had with roles was fine-grained authorization rules.

Roles are too broad for some policies I need to enforce.

This is where permissions come in.

I can define permissions for specific actions.

It's easy to allow other roles to access that action: I have to assign the permission to the role.

It's not a complicated idea. But it's a powerful authorization approach.

If you want to learn more about RBAC authorization and how to implement it, check out this article: https://lnkd.in/evk9tk9K

RBAC transforms authorization from a maintenance headache into a flexible, scalable system.

Start with permissions: Define what actions users can perform, not what roles they have.

---
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No alternative text description for this image

How do you add Health Checks in .NET?

- AddHealthChecks - introduces the required services
- MapHealthChecks - exposes a health check endpoint

The next thing you need to do is introduce health checks.

There are many HC libraries for popular databases, message brokers, etc.

If you want a complete guide, here's an article you will enjoy.

Learn more about Health Checks here: https://lnkd.in/eZpbteUs

Want to get started with Event-Driven applications?

Event notifications are one of the simplest patterns to explore.

Domain events in DDD are a great example of this pattern.

Aggregates act as a consistency boundary in a domain. So if we need to change something outside the aggregate, we can publish a domain event.

It's a loosely coupled way for two aggregates to communicate.

An aggregate raises a domain event. Other aggregates can subscribe to this domain event and handle it accordingly.

Here's how you could implement this: https://lnkd.in/efekt2DQ

Domain events can help you build a loosely coupled system.

You can use them to separate the core domain logic from the side effects, which can be handled asynchronously.

---
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Multiple EF Core DbContexts in a single application?

Here's when it makes sense to do this:

- Working with multiple databases
- Separating concerns
- Modular monolith
- Read replicas

I did this when implementing a modular monolith application.

Each module had a dedicated schema in the database and a separate DbContext in the code.

The surprising part?

How EF Core deals with database migrations and different schemas.

Here's a breakdown of how I solved this: https://lnkd.in/e6JWgpNv

Did you need to use multiple DbContexts with EF?

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One small change = 400x FASTER query

Here's what I did to achieve this performance boost.

I was implementing cursor pagination with EF and Postgres.

But I need to make the query faster.

How do you make an SQL query faster?

Add an index, and you're good to go.

Right?

Not quite...

I created a composite index on the required columns to speed up the query.

BUT THIS MADE THE QUERY SLOWER!!!

This led me down a rabbit hole to figure out why the index wasn't used.

I knew about tuple comparison from before, and this solved the problem.

But I didn't know how to translate this into an EF Core query.

Luckily, the Postgres provider supports this with a custom function.

Here's everything you should know: https://lnkd.in/eD629U-B

---
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How I made my query 400x faster using EF and tuples

Caching isn’t magic.

If your queries are slow or your algorithms are inefficient, caching won’t save you.

But once you’ve done the hard work:
- Optimized your database
- Fixed slow code paths
- Tuned your queries

Caching can make everything feel "instant".

I’ve seen APIs go from good to great just by caching the right data in the right place.

ASPNET Core gives you several ways to do that:
- IMemoryCache for in-memory caching
- IDistributedCache for shared, multi-instance apps

Each has its own strengths, and using them effectively is key to real performance gains. I wrote a guide that walks through the options, trade-offs, and gotchas, with code samples you can use right away.

Read it here: https://lnkd.in/ez9Dhn7M

And starting with .NET 9, there’s a new option: HybridCache.
It combines L1 and L2 caching, so you get the speed of in-memory cache plus the consistency of a distributed backend like Redis. It’s one of my favorite new additions because it solves real-world problems with minimal setup.

If you want to see how HybridCache works and when to use it in production, I covered that here: https://lnkd.in/eNY-BcBD

In the end, caching solves caching problems.

But don't forget that some problems, like bad design, inefficient queries, or missing indexes, can’t be solved with a cache.

---
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How to use caching in ASP.NET Core

Do you know all 3 ways to define Middleware in ASP .NET Core?

Middleware allows you to introduce additional logic before or after executing an HTTP request.

Middleware is an excellent choice for solving cross-cutting concerns in your application.

You are already using many of the built-in middleware available in the framework.

I'm going to show you three approaches to define custom middleware:

- Request Delegates
- Convention based
- Factory based

Here's everything you need to know: https://lnkd.in/eHYAh7Pc

How do you prefer to define middleware in .NET?

How do you create HttpClients in .NET?

The recommended approach is using the IHttpClientFactory.

You can use the IHttpClientFactory directly.

The downside is you'll have to configure the HttpClient every time.

If you want to get a pre-configured HttpClient, you can use named or typed clients.

Here's the right way to work with HttpClient in .NET: https://lnkd.in/eiRxYj-T

I showed you a few possible options for working with HttpClient.

But which one should you use and when?

I prefer working with a typed client, and I'm mindful of the fact that it's configured as a transient service.

---
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Did you check out the new IExceptionHandler in .NET?

It's a simplified way to handle exceptions globally. IExceptionHandler is part of the built-in exception handling middleware.

You can handle all exceptions or a specific exception. Which also means you can chain handlers.

Want to learn more?

Here's an in-depth article: https://lnkd.in/ewH2qxG9

What are you using for exception handling?

I've switched all my APIs to the new exception handler and haven't looked back.

---
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Building a multi-tenant system?

EF Core has some great features you should know about:
- Dynamic connection strings
- Query filters for global tenant queries

You'll need a service to provide the TenantId for the current tenant. You can grab this value from a request header or JWT claim.

That TenantId will be used to filter data so each tenant only sees their own records. EF Core query filters make this easy to apply across your entire data model.

For connection-per-tenant setups, you can resolve the connection string at runtime. This gives you full isolation at the database level, great for larger tenants or stricter security needs.

Side effect: you'll only be able to use the DbContext as part of an HTTP request. Background jobs or integrations will need another way to resolve the tenant context.

If you're curious to learn more about what EF can offer for building multi-tenant applications, check out this article: https://lnkd.in/ekKkqr8S

I hope you now have a better understanding of how to build a multi-tenant system with EF Core.

I showed you the bare bones implementation, which you can improve to make it more robust and secure.

Building multi-tenant systems isn't easy, but when you understand the basic principles it shouldn't be too difficult either.

---
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How to build Multi-Tenant apps with EF Core

EF Core 10 finally gets LeftJoin and RightJoin.

I always had to google how to do a left join in LINQ. Not anymore!

Now with the new operators in Entity Framework Core 10 you finally get clear, simple joins that match what you mean.

Before: GroupJoin + DefaultIfEmpty

Now: LeftJoin

With the new LeftJoin method you write exactly that: “keep all from left, match right when available.” The intent is obvious, the code is shorter, and the translation to SQL is the same.

I wrote about all the details of the new LeftJoin and RightJoin methods in this article: https://lnkd.in/eNmPqtBq

In short: the new LeftJoin and RightJoin operators in EF Core 10 clean up the mess, make your intent crystal clear, reduce boilerplate, and give you better readable code.

Better late than never, I guess...

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EF Core LeftJoin and RightJoin

Here are 8 tips to make your code clean:

✅ Use result objects
✅ Merge if statements
✅ Early return principle
✅ Magic string -> Enum
✅ Prefer custom exceptions
✅ Use LINQ for conciseness
✅ Magic number -> Constant
✅ Boolean expression -> Method

Good developers can spot code smells with one glance.

If you want to master clean code, start here: https://lnkd.in/evHqcE4F

Do you have to think about writing clean code, or is it second nature to you?

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I worked on an application that scaled to 1M+ active users.

It was powered by a single Azure SQL instance.

However, we would run into problems when a traffic spike happened.

Some queries would eat up the database resources.

So, here are the two things we did to improve performance:
- Cache aggressively
- Add a read replica

We used two-level caching on all application instances. First, we checked the in-memory cache, and in case of a cache miss, we checked if the data was available in Redis.

Sidenote: HybridCache makes this easy in newer .NET versions.

Caching significantly reduced the load on the database and allowed us to scale.

However, some queries took a long time to execute, and it didn't make much sense to cache the results.

So, we decided to use a read replica for these queries

Luckily, Azure makes the entire replication process easy to configure.

Here are 7 more ways you can scale your application: https://lnkd.in/eBbQ--wD

If there's one thing you take away from this post, it's scale when necessary.

If we did this at the start of the project, it would've only slowed us down.

--- 
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Two ways to scale applications

AI can write your code. But it can also ship your next security bug.

That’s the reality for anyone using Copilot, Cursor, or Gemini today.

Coding is easy. Reviewing, verifying, and securing it isn’t.

In my latest video, I show how SonarQube’s new MCP Server closes that gap.

It connects your AI-powered IDE directly with SonarQube Cloud or Server — so you can scan, fix, and validate code without ever leaving your editor.

✅ Run full static analysis through Cursor
✅ Catch vulnerabilities and maintainability issues instantly
✅ Automate code reviews with Sonar’s AI integration

It’s free, open-source, and runs in Docker.

Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/eY6MG3br

Once you see it in action, you’ll never ship AI-generated code without it again.

What is OpenTelemetry?

If you care about observability, you should know about OpenTelemetry.

It's a vendor-neutral, open-source standard for instrumenting applications to generate telemetry data.

OpenTelemetry contains APIs, SDKs, and tools for creating and managing this telemetry data (traces, metrics, and logs).

Does it work in .NET?

I wrote a simple guide to getting started with OpenTelemetry in .NET.

Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/e47JAxcy

What do you use to implement observability in your apps?

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What's wrong with the first code snippet?

The second example is 43x faster to insert 10,000 records.

But what causes such a huge performance difference?

If you understand how EF works under the hood, the answer should be obvious. 👇

Every call to SaveChanges means one round-trip to the database.

In the first example, inserting each record means one call to the database.

This quickly adds up...

Here's why it's important to use the right tool for the job: https://lnkd.in/eStH9yku

Sending unnecessary queries to the database is one of the biggest performance killers in enterprise applications.

---
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If your .NET app runs background jobs or distributed workers, you need a way to prevent duplicate execution.

Otherwise, two instances can pick up the same task: sending duplicate emails, charging twice, or overwriting data.

That’s where distributed locking comes in.

In my latest video, I show how to implement production-ready distributed locks in .NET using a single clean library.

You’ll see how to:
- Use Postgres advisory locks and Redis for distributed coordination
- Build a reusable locking abstraction for any .NET app
- Decide when it actually makes sense to use one

If you care about reliability and data integrity, this one’s worth your time.

Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eWfVWmHk

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Milan Jovanović

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taplio

The Battle

Dr Milan Milanović

Milan Jovanović

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dr Milan Milanović's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreDr Milan Milanović's LinkedIn Performance