Ivan
Software Developer Consultant, Evanston Office
Education
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO
B.S. in Computer Science and Math, 2000
Activities at UIC: Soccer and Ping-Pong
Memories of UIC: "Advice I would give to all MCS and EECS students is to take as many 400-level math and computer science classes as possible, in addition to the required courses. Although at the time, some of the things I was learning in those classes seemed interesting but not really relevant to me, they really proved to be very useful at my job."
Hometown
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
ZS Career Path
Software Developer Associate, 2000
Software Developer Consultant, 2003
On the work
“My favorite project so far was the strategy suite we developed to deal with sales force sizing, structuring and resource allocation issues. The tool is used by both internal teams and by external clients, and I was in charge of creating the optimization section. It was interesting because I had studied optimization in college, and I was able to get some hands-on experience and learn a lot, not just about optimization, but about software development in general. When we started the project one and a half years ago, the challenge was quite overwhelming, but it’s great to be part of something so important to ZS.”
On ZS values
Do the Right Thing: “When we were beta-testing part of one of our application suites, the client came back to us with some problems. We were really busy working on another software project and time-constrained, but instead of fixing it as a hack, we all figured out what was wrong and how to fix it. When you do the right thing, you won’t have to fix it a second time.”
On life outside work
“I am a computer buff, so in my free time I enjoy coding in C++ and Visual Basic on pet projects like a game engine. I also like reading, mostly non-fiction, history and science and technology. I usually read about 2-3 hours a day. I also like movies, the foreign artsy kind that are shown at the Music Box Theater in Chicago.”
On the Evanston office
“Chicago and Evanston both have a lot to offer. The Lakefront is beautiful, and there is a lot of culture and great theater, art galleries and museums. Evanston is a unique mix of suburban and urban lifestyles, so we have high-rise buildings, but it is much different from downtown. Evanston is a great place to both live and work.”