Nikola Garabandić, Developer in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia
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Nikola Garabandić

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Unity Developer

Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia

Toptal member since September 26, 2022

Expertise
User Interface (UI)Game DevelopmentGitHubC#.NETC#.NETUnity3DTestFlight2D GamesGame DesignGame AI3D GamesCTOAgileTrello
Bio

Nikola is a Certified Professional Unity developer and a Certified Unity instructor with over five years of experience building Unity-based games in various genres, from hypercasual to full-fledged multiplayer first-person shooter games. The biggest game that Nikola has worked on was Isonzo; it took over three years to be developed and was released on Windows, Linux PS, and Xbox in September 2022.

Portfolio

ChainSafe Systems
C#, Dependency Injection, Unity, Solidity, 3D Games, Multiplayer, SDKs...
WW1 Game Series
C#, Unity, .NET, Gaming, Communication, C#.NET, Unity3D, Game Design, Game AI...
KrishnaKishore PS
Unity3D, C#, Mobile Game Development, User Interface (UI), Leadership...

Experience

Unity3D - 5 yearsC# - 5 yearsC#.NET - 5 yearsUnity - 5 yearsGame AI - 3 yearsQuantum - 2 yearsJava - 1 year

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Windows, JetBrains Rider, Discord, Unity2D

The most amazing...

...and advanced project I've developed is the AI for Isonzo; I had to ensure that the bots would react appropriately to all the scenarios in the game.

Work Experience

Senior Technical Lead

2023 - PRESENT
ChainSafe Systems
  • Mentored and built career paths for three direct reports, fostering their professional growth within Chainsafe Systems.
  • Led the scheduling and execution of the release cycle for Web3.Unity SDK, delivering it on time and within budget.
  • Enhanced developer experience. Developed Unity wrappers for native iOS and Android code provided by Ramp.Network. That means that web3.unity is the first Web3 SDK on the market with a Fiat On/Off Ramp embedded in it.
  • Implemented cross-chain EVM transfers by utilizing Sygna. This expanded the capabilities of Chainsafe's technology stack by enabling seamless transfer of digital assets between different blockchain networks.
Technologies: C#, Dependency Injection, Unity, Solidity, 3D Games, Multiplayer, SDKs, TestFlight, User Interface (UI), Leadership, Technical Leadership, Solution Architecture

Unity Developer

2019 - PRESENT
WW1 Game Series
  • Made an AI system from scratch in which bots would appropriately react to each and every game scenario.
  • Built the entire settings system to be as performant and intuitive as possible for the other developers.
  • Fixed memory leaks and optimized code in various systems, even those I wasn't in charge of.
  • Ensured that all the music behaved according to the composer's vision.
  • Discovered and fixed a lot of intermittent issues that were lingering all the way back from Verdun and Tannenberg.
Technologies: C#, Unity, .NET, Gaming, Communication, C#.NET, Unity3D, Game Design, Game AI, FMOD, Scrum, Agile, Favro, Kanban, Photon Unity Networking (PUN), Photon, Multiplayer, Architecture, Responsive Design, Game Development, User Interface (UI), Solution Architecture

Unity Game Developer

2024 - 2024
KrishnaKishore PS
  • Added new features to the hyper-causal game according to the game design document.
  • Fixed optimization issues that were related to using improper rendering pipeline settings for the mobile platform.
  • Wrote flexible code so the client can easily extend and add as many features as possible.
Technologies: Unity3D, C#, Mobile Game Development, User Interface (UI), Leadership, Solution Architecture

Unity Game Developer

2024 - 2024
KrishnaKishore P S
  • Optimized the game by extracting the complex and unreadable logic into a more structured piece of code.
  • Consulted the client on Unity and programming best practices, covering topics such as variable names, inheritance, and polymorphism.
  • Unified different bot behaviors into simpler and more extendable classes so that the client can later work on expanding the logic pretty easily.
Technologies: Unity3D, C#, Mobile Game Development, TestFlight, User Interface (UI)

Senior Unity Developer

2022 - 2023
Mentava, Inc.
  • Was part of the core team for the Learn2Read app that helps kids aged 2+ how to read.
  • Wrote the code for the app functionality and was mainly focused on helping and delivering the best Unity practices for the rest of the team recently introduced to Unity.
  • Solved some more complex tasks, which involved writing custom shaders for certain parts of the app.
  • Untangled some issues and bugs that were intermittent or/and that required extensive Unity experience in order to be solved.
Technologies: Unity, Gaming, Communication, Flutter, iPad, GitHub, TestFlight, User Interface (UI), Leadership, Solution Architecture

Unity Developer

2018 - 2020
Polyspice
  • Continued and finished the development of the game, Beat Cancer.
  • Spearheaded the prototyping of a game that became known as Planet Rabbit two years later.
  • Managed junior developers, including onboarding, explaining the codebase, and overseeing their game development progress.
Technologies: Unity, C#, .NET, iOS, Mobile Game Development, Gaming, Communication, C#.NET, Unity3D, Game Design, Game AI, Scrum, Agile, Trello, Kanban, Jira, SQL, Architecture, Responsive Design, Unity2D, Mobile Games, Game Development, GitHub, TestFlight, User Interface (UI), Leadership, CTO, Solution Architecture

CTO | Unity Developer

2017 - 2018
Stick & Rope
  • Managed several developers who, after I left the company, successfully managed to finish and publish the games all by themselves.
  • Completed several games from the prototyping phase to the live ops phase as the only developer.
  • Rapid-prototyped dozens of games with the CEO deciding which games we should continue working on based on how fun they are.
Technologies: C#, Unity, TypeScript, .NET, iOS, Mobile Game Development, Gaming, Communication, C#.NET, Unity3D, Game Design, Game AI, Scrum, Agile, Trello, Kanban, Jira, SQL, Architecture, Unity2D, Mobile Games, Toon Boom, Game Development, TestFlight, User Interface (UI), CTO, Solution Architecture

Isonzo

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1556790/Isonzo/
After the AI lead left, I was appointed to that spot to start working on improving bots and making new systems from scratch for them as well as adding new behaviors. I also worked on several other systems.

SYSTEM CONTRIBUTIONS
• Spawning system
• Player classes
• Making and fixing tools for mappers and game designers
• Progression/unlock system
• Points-and-perks system
• Character controller system
• Creation of new features for the internal trailer tool system (it was used for recording trailers)

My final contributions included rewriting the entire game settings logic to be as clean and as performant as possible.

Beat Cancer

https://polyspice.com/beat-cancer/
This is the game that was my first freelance gig done for the Danish studio called Polyspice. On this project, I was in charge of adding new features, such as new weapons and a separate section in the game called Comedy Club; this was necessary to complete the game. I also heavily experimented with Firebase remote notifications and cloud functions, but that feature never went live.

Tap to the Moon

https://tap-to-the-moon.en.aptoide.com/app
Tap to the Moon is the first game I developed when the studio was officially formed. I was responsible for prototyping the game. After we validated the prototype, we took on mechanics which were fun and started building other parts of the game. I also added new level segments, the UI, shop, and IAP.

Verdun and Tannenberg

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/5227/WW1_Game_Series/
Verdun is the first fully-fledged WW1 Game that got published on Steam all the way back in 2013. I joined the team in 2019 to help finish Tannenberg's development and add new enhancements to Verdun. Although the games are now mainly in the maintenance stage, they were actively under regular development until mid-2020.
2014 - 2018

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

Faculty Of Technical Sciences - Novi Sad, Serbia

SEPTEMBER 2021 - PRESENT

Certified Unity Instructor

Unity Technologies

APRIL 2021 - APRIL 2027

Unity Certified Professional: Programmer

Unity Technologies

Libraries/APIs

FMOD

Tools

GitHub, TestFlight, Trello, Jira, Toon Boom

Languages

C#, C#.NET, SQL, Java, Python, C++, C, JavaScript, TypeScript, Solidity

Frameworks

Unity, .NET, Unity3D, Photon Unity Networking (PUN), Photon, Unity2D, Spring MVC, Flutter

Paradigms

Scrum, Agile, Kanban, Dependency Injection, Mobile Development

Platforms

Firebase, iOS, Android

Other

Gaming, Communication, Favro, Multiplayer, Architecture, Mobile Games, Game Development, User Interface (UI), Solution Architecture, User Behavior, Game Design, Game AI, 3D Games, 2D Games, Responsive Design, Quantum, Leadership, CTO, Mobile Game Development, iPad, SDKs, Identity Aware Proxy (IAP), Technical Leadership

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