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Goran Ninkovic

Hey, I’m Goran.

I’m a full-stack engineer based in Novi Sad, Serbia. I’ve spent the last 7+ years building web applications for companies across the Netherlands, Germany, and the US — mostly in e-commerce, mostly with PHP and Vue.

The work I enjoy most sits at the intersection of code and systems thinking. I like designing APIs, writing architecture decision records, setting up CI that actually catches things, and building the kind of developer tooling that makes the whole team faster — not just me.

I also care about the open-source ecosystem. I’ve contributed fixes to DDEV and Vue Storefront, and I believe that sharing what you learn is one of the best parts of this job.

I’d rather spend a day setting up the right abstractions than a week cleaning up the wrong ones.

Things I believe

  • Boring technology is underrated.

    The best stack is the one your team already knows. I reach for proven tools and save novelty for where it actually matters.

  • Write it down.

    If an architecture decision isn’t documented, it’s just an opinion. ADRs, README files, and inline comments are how you scale knowledge beyond one person.

  • Developer experience is product work.

    A reproducible local environment, fast CI, and auto-generated API clients aren’t nice-to-haves — they’re what let the team ship instead of fighting tooling.

  • Grow the people around you.

    I’ve mentored junior developers, run workshops, and pair-programmed through hard problems. A team that levels up together ships better software.

  • Static analysis is a form of kindness.

    PHPStan at max level, TypeScript in strict mode, Deptrac module boundaries — these aren’t bureaucracy. They’re how you say “future me won’t hate past me.”

When I’m not coding

I read a lot — mostly nonfiction about systems, organizations, and how things work. I’m currently going through Designing Data-Intensive Applications for the second time. I run Kubuntu Linux as my daily driver (since 2016), tinker with Ansible playbooks for laptop provisioning, and occasionally disappear into a side project that’ll never see production. I live in Novi Sad, Serbia.

Want to work together?

I’m open to remote opportunities. If you’re building something interesting, I’d love to hear about it.

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