Emir Sijercic started working at Softhouse for little more than five years ago. He started his journey as a QA engineer with our Bosnia, Sarajevo team. Today he works as a Scrum Master but is also a part of the Softhouse Leaders group regarding people and culture.

Emir is involved in many projects as a Scrum Master. His duties are to keep the project progress overview and educate all team members in the Agile way of working with a particular focus on Scrum and Kanban. Besides that, he is a part of the Softhouse Leaders group, where he is focused on the employees, taking care of their wellbeing, creating development plans and doing follow-ups, and handling administrative stuff.

He is currently setting up performance reviews, working on a Softhouse internal project (soon to be released), resolving several client project challenges, and completing the Employee Cards, which will be used to visualize projects and people in the Sarajevo office.

A passion for the Softhouse culture

Being curious and sharing knowledge is a natural part of our culture at Softhouse. We work actively to create opportunities and possibilities where we can share our experiences and expertise in different formats and get to know each other and our teams in all our offices.

– I am passionate about people, and people motivate me. The working environment and my colleagues are my true motivation. The Softhouse Way of working is something I genuinely believe in, and I am investing my time in building and maintaining the culture that Softhouse stands for. The culture is humble and people-centric, and the main focus is teamwork, says Emir.

He continues:

– The most fun thing about my job is the people — the small things that happen in the office, our culture, freedom, and responsibilities. Readiness to continuously improve in any way and what I particularly like about Softhouse is feeling the safety and not being treated as a resource but as a contribution to the whole Softhouse team.

Emir also explains that people are the biggest challenge in his job.

– Understanding every individual, getting to know them, their passions, and their motivation – it is a challenge, but it is also a challenge I embrace, Emir says.

I am a team player by heart

Emir’s favorite value word at Softhouse is team.

– It is all about the team, team responsibility, becoming cross-functional, self-managing, and how to set up a team and get the best out of them. How to create high-performing teams, Emir says.

He says the best thing about working as a consultant is being involved in the whole process. That means seeing the big picture while delivering value in written code and consulting the clients to get more value for their money. Also, in his role as a consultant, he talks about the importance of knowing many different tools.

– Actually, I do not have a specific favorite tool. Every tool has its benefits and disadvantages, so knowing many tools is essential to determine the optimal tool for a particular purpose, Emir explains.

From developer to Scrum Master

Emir has been working at Softhouse for more than five years, and when we asked him about his journey and development, he gladly opened up.

– My work journey as a developer started back in 2007. Before Softhouse, I did not feel comfortable in the developer role, which my former employer recognized. After one year of working on a Windows application, I switched to the role of Application Engineer/Sales. During this time, I was responsible for the whole team working on a device series and directly communicating with distributors worldwide. But that came to an end as well.

He continues:

– After seven years working for that company, I had the opportunity to switch to another company, working as Quality Assurance Tester. In that company, we were using Agile/Scrum, but the development and QA team rejected it, not seeing the real value in that way of working. At that point, I started to investigate Agile and Scrum by myself. I realized I wanted to work with a company that understood Lean and Agile and worked by the principles, both internally and externally – which led me to Softhouse.

Softhouse is one of the leading companies in Scandinavia in terms of Lean and Agile software development. In addition to our Agile base, we all have a strong common interest – to develop software, businesses, and people. We pride ourselves on being people-centric, having a flat hierarchy, offering the freedom to fail and learn from that, and having an aspirational culture that is inviting and open-minded where people can come as they are to become what they want to be.

– During my first year of working at Softhouse, I wanted to challenge myself and go for a Scrum Master role in a project. The management team embraced this at Softhouse, and it did not take long before I was working as QA and SM on a project. It was a challenging project, and I learned a lot from that experience. “The rock bottom will teach you things that the top of the mountain never can,” Emir concludes.

– I also want to add that when I started working at Softhouse, I was, in a way, waiting to see “where is the catch.” Five years later, I can honestly say there is no catch! Softhouse truly holds the values it is communicating and acts accordingly. People in the center, employees, and clients!

Consultant by day and DJ by night

Emir is a man of many hobbies but the ones he loves the most are his family, his wife, two kids, and their dog. He also spends a lot of time with his kids in various activities; he loves mountain biking and hiking. But his biggest passion is music.

– I love good music, from jazz to electronic to metal music, ” he says.

Emir also has a secret talent, which is not so secret if you are a Softhouser and have been to events with Emir.

– I have been producing music all my life; it was metal at the beginning (I play guitar). Nowadays, I am making electronic music and occasionally a DJ at events like SofthouseDay.