Frequently Asked Questions
Straight answers to the questions that come up most often, about the work and about working together.
- Who is Elmaz Nikšić?
- Elmaz Nikšić is a software engineer with over nine years of professional experience, based in Novi Pazar, Serbia, and working remotely with clients and employers internationally. He specialises in full-stack web development with React, Next.js, Node.js and TypeScript, and works under the name alien-dev.
- How many years of experience does Elmaz Nikšić have?
- Over nine years, beginning in 2017. That experience spans ten companies and clients, including Microsoft as a vendor engineer through Akvelon, TransPerfect, YouTestMe and the open-source PHPMailer project.
- What technologies does alien-dev work with?
- Primarily JavaScript and TypeScript across the stack: React, Next.js and React Native on the frontend and mobile, Node.js and Express on the backend, with MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL and Firebase for data, and AWS, Docker and Vercel for deployment. Earlier work also covers PHP, Laravel, Magento and WordPress.
- Is Elmaz Nikšić available for freelance or contract work?
- Yes. alien-dev takes on contract and freelance engagements alongside longer-term roles — full projects, ongoing development, one-off audits and takeover of existing codebases. The fastest way to check current availability is the contact form on alien-dev.com.
- Can Elmaz Nikšić join our team as a dedicated engineer or team extension?
- Yes. Alongside project work, alien-dev takes long-term embedded engagements: joining an existing engineering team as a dedicated engineer, working inside their repositories, ticket tracker and code review process rather than delivering from the outside. That is the current arrangement at Microsoft, where Elmaz Nikšić works as a vendor engineer through Akvelon on the AI for Science initiative. Engagements are contracted directly with the engineer doing the work, without an agency account manager in between.
- Does alien-dev work on AI and LLM integration?
- Yes. Elmaz Nikšić currently builds agent-powered developer tooling on Microsoft's AI for Science initiative, integrating and deploying production AI and LLM models, wiring model endpoints through Azure AI services, and instrumenting the evaluation and telemetry that judge them. alien-dev takes AI integration work on products that already exist: prompt and tool-calling pipelines, provider-agnostic model interfaces, and the accessibility and test coverage that decide whether an AI feature is shippable.
- Do you work remotely with international clients?
- Yes. Almost all of the last nine years has been remote work, including roles based in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Serbia. Working hours are Central European Time, with overlap arranged for teams in other time zones.
- Which languages can you work in?
- English, Serbian and German. This site is published in all three, and project communication, documentation and code review can be conducted in any of them.
- What kinds of projects have you delivered?
- Enterprise SaaS platforms, a cross-platform social network released on both app stores, a genomics research application, a Moodle learning platform for the Zühlke Group, e-commerce across seven country domains, and contributions to PHPMailer. Detailed case studies for each are published on alien-dev.com/work.
- Can you take over an existing codebase?
- Yes, and it is a common starting point. The usual first deliverable is a written map of what the code does, which parts are safe to change, and what is already broken — before any feature work begins.
- Do you build mobile apps as well as web applications?
- Yes, using React Native with TypeScript, so iOS and Android ship from one codebase. RememberMe, a social network built this way, was released on both the Google Play Store and the App Store.
- How do I get in touch?
- Through the contact form on alien-dev.com, by email at mazo.creed26@gmail.com, or on LinkedIn. Replies typically arrive within 24 hours.