A Day in the Life: Nenad Nicevski Shares His Optimizely Expertise

Through Perficient’s wide range of capabilities and expertise, we bring a strategic mindset, innovative ideas, and a practical approach to help our clients and partners succeed.

With several years of thought leadership spanning technologies and time zones, Nenad Nicevski, senior technical consultant, shares his Perficient experience and how he built strong relationships within our Sitecore and Optimizely practice. 

Continue reading to learn more about the training courses that Nenad has taken, the helpful advice that has shaped his professional career, and what motivates him to continue making a difference for Perficient. 

What is your role? Describe a typical day in your life. 

I am a senior technical consultant working primarily on Optimizely projects, and my range of responsibilities include performing duties, supporting projects, and substituting for members of the team as needed.  

Typically, I spend half of the day in meetings and the rest of my time is spent managing developer work, providing guidance, and training team members. I am currently working on two projects, so I have two daily stand-up meetings. Each of those meetings are interlinked, so I jump from one to another. After the meetings, then I can work on my own tasks. These are sometimes development related which include writing and updating the project documentation. I also need to verify the pull requests that my team members made to merge their code into the project’s code base. 

At the end of the day, I will squeeze in half an hour to pick up my six-year-old daughter from school. I enjoy being able to walk to the bus station with her to drop her off for school in the morning and then of course pick her up later after school. 

What do you enjoy the most about working at Perficient? 

The people are my favorite part about working at Perficient. When I started at Perficient, I created a good bond with different people across the company. We understand each other and function excellently. Perficient is a big company and there are lots of great people working here, especially in the Sitecore, Optimizely, and Aquia business unit.  

READ MORE: Spotlighting Our Sitecore Practice: Nine Colleagues Honored as 2024 Sitecore MVPs  

My second favorite thing is working on complex, challenging projects. There is room to grow and learn new things, which helps with personal development. Last year I attended two training courses; one was Perficient’s Learning to Lead program and the other was senior to lead role training.  

Both training courses lasted for several months and involved lots of meetings. We watched videos that taught writing through creative workshops, and we also learned from each other by listening to everyone’s expertise. I connected with colleagues across different BUs, and we brainstormed together on project solutions and identifying the right direction.  

READ MORE: Learn About Perficient’s Award-Winning Growth for Everyone Program 

 

What are your proudest accomplishments, personally and professionally? Any milestone moments at Perficient? 

I have worked with Optimizely for many years now, and I am certified in that technology. I came to Perficient through an acquisition where I was a lead engineer and helped create a product that was displayed at the Optimizely 2019 conference. That product was what put us on the map at the time, and I’m very proud of that work. I helped improve that product, and it has continued to grow at Perficient to a fine selling point on the market.  

I’m also proud of the SCORE framework for Optimizely that I engineered. It was successfully implemented on multiple customer projects with great degrees of success. 

Every company should have its own accelerator or guided startup project to help them create new websites and projects quickly. This could either be a social network, database, or analytics. Within our solution, we have very cool features like a responsive image editor and integration with other platforms.  Everything is in one place, which makes it easier to help provide access to information. 

What advice would you give to colleagues who are starting their career with Perficient?   

Be honest to everyone, act professionally, and ask for help. Try to figure it out on your own and reach out for help when needed. People are willing to provide guidance, or even act as a tutor. My favorite piece of advice: don’t be shy to ask questions.   

Whether big or small, how do you make a difference for our clients, communities, or teams? 

For the community, I’m planning to start up the Canadian Optimizely user group and invest time to share word of Optimizely and Perficient. There are similar user groups for Sitecore, and I would like to be an advocate for Perficient and Optimizely. I have a few blogs that I’d like to write to spread the word.  

What motivates you in your daily work? 

How I was raised motivates me, and this was mostly because of my father. I learned that if you’re doing something, do it right and do it the best that you can. This has motivated me throughout my entire life. This is also why I am a bit of a perfectionist, which can be both good and bad.  If I want to do something, I will do it in the best way that I can. I work hard, and if it’s too easy, then there’s something that I missed.  

I have trained myself to become used to long hours and understanding that if it’s not hard, then I’m not challenging myself enough. You can say that my professional career has involved tough choices and hard projects. Whenever it’s a hard project for me, I change my mindset, and then it’s not as difficult.  

Why did you choose Perficient? What keeps you here?   

As I mentioned, I came to Perficient through an acquisition. The people, good projects, and simply having the room to advance and grow have kept me here. I have grown here at Perficient and have obtained new experiences and knowledge.  

We are now working directly with Optimizely to help clients. When I first started working with Optimizely, I was working more on outsourcing projects. Now, I’m right at the source, working directly with Optimizely, and having people ask us for help.  

If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room. I always try to find the room where I’m not the smartest person. When you’re surrounded by great people, then you can learn from others and expand your knowledge.  

I have worked with colleagues in Latin America, India, and our European offices. It has become normal to work on a project with people from all around the world, and I enjoy learning from other cultures and seeing how they think. 

What are you passionate about outside of work? 

Spending quality time with my family and playing the guitar and basketball. 

What’s something surprising people might not know about you or your background? 

I have worked as a teacher for six years in a technical high school. Usually, I joke about that period and say that in my “previous life” I was a professor. I taught electronics, electrotechnics, and computer science courses. During that time, I also managed a freelance business outside of my regular work in the school. 

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