About Me

Introduction

Hello! I'm Dušan Todorović, a resident of Belgrade, Serbia. You might think I've been coding since I was in diapers, but nope!

I come from a long line of musicians - my dad, granddad, and great-granddad were all accordion players.

So, you can imagine music has always been a big part of my life. I picked up the accordion at the tender age of 8 and I was pretty good at it!

Musical Background

I wasn't just limited to the accordion. I also played the keyboard and it became my main source of income for years. I even taught others how to play accordion and keyboard.

Oh, really, I could share so much about this. The main point is, my father was rooting for me to prolong our musical roots, but I guess I never really found myself going for it commercially, especially because of the social side in folk music in Serbia.

But yes, I had to earn money and I was good at playing, so I kept going for it while exploring other options.

Transition to Programming

My transition into programming happened quite unexpectedly. During college, I had to take a web design class and that's where I fell in love with coding. After that, I started taking front-end courses on platforms like Udemy and FreeCodeCamp.

Eventually, I landed my first job as a junior front-end developer through a friend of a friend. At that time, knowing HTML, CSS (with a bit of Bootstrap), and some JavaScript was enough to get by.

Early Career

Despite the lack of advanced tools, I made significant progress after leaving my first job. I spent a lot of time reading documentation and working on personal projects to build up my full-stack skills. I also continued to teach music and play on parties to support myself financially.

I was pretty disciplined. I worked on my projects every day, as if it was my job. I have to say, the key to pushing me forward was that I was always working on challenging projects. It started off from ideas, designing them myself in Figma, and then handling the front-end and/or back-end if it required it, and then deployment.

Current Role

After building my portfolio and honing my skills, I landed a job that changed my life. I'm currently a front-end team lead at a reputable company. I love how I've grown not just in my tech skills, but also in my management and soft skills.

I enjoy both the operational side of work, and also managing people.

Interests

I have a few quirky habits that might surprise you. For instance, I used to watch streams of League of Legends, even though I don't play the game anymore. I also enjoy playing PlayStation 5 from time to time, but lately, I've been more inclined towards working on personal projects than playing video games.

I absolutely love dogs and other animals, but dogs are my favorite, that's for sure. They are pure, and lovable and they are our best friends! I always get fascinated, over and over, by how much positive energy I get from Lilly. Lilly is my dog, Shi Tzuh!

I also like TV shows and movies. Some of my favorites include The Sopranos, Dexter, Mad Men.