Project/delivery manager
- marko@alpner.com
- +386 40 645 372
- Polževo, Slovenia
- linkedin.com/in/alpner/
Experienced project/delivery manager with vast technical knowledge and design background, combining more than 12 years of expertise in delivering digital solutions for international clients. Agile-native, budget-conscious, process-oriented with a people-first attitude.
Work Experience
Project manager at Kaldi d.o.o.
July 2017 – June 2026 (9 years)
Joined as a UI Designer, who transitioned to project management within the first two years. Managed projects for domestic and international clients (UK, Saudi Arabia, USA) across multiple sectors: genealogy platform, subscription service generating six-figures annually, online pharmacy, custom transport accounting solution, national digital transaction management and a celebrity video platform. I also played an active role in the discovery for a pharmaceutical IoT product.
Led multiple teams from 3 and up to 8 members, using primarily Agile methodologies, sometimes still dipping my toe in waterfall, depending on project complexity and client requests, demands and needs. I focused on hands-on leadership, clear communication, and accountability.
Minimized micromanagement and unnecessary overhead, encouraged ownership, while seeking solutions, improving processes and finding ways to add additional value. When things got tough, or my team needed an extra pair of hands, I didn’t mind opening up Developer tools, Postman/Bruno, Visual Studio Code, and assisting with my development knowledge.
Responsibilities
- Daily stand-ups, retrospectives, sprint reviews, breakdowns and estimates, etc.
- Development roadmaps and delivery timeline optimization.
- Dependency tracking and resolution.
- Budget management and client invoicing.
- Stakeholder presentations and progress reporting.
- First line of support – initial QA, live prioritization of bugs and tickets.
- Active collaboration with tech and team leads, preparing and maintaining system architecture documentation, development proposals, etc.
Facts and achievements
- Managed multiple teams and projects spanning 3+ years.
- Transitioned fixed-price project to time & material, improving margin and client satisfaction.
- Onboarded clients into Agile methodology, reducing scope creep and improving delivery.
- Streamlined workflows for projects with complex no-touch dependencies, reducing support workload by 50%.
Culture-fit
As most of the world goes remote, I do not mind in office presence – it’s in my nature to build and maintain relationships with a team. At Kaldi, this also meant providing direction and capturing lifestyle visuals, which are the core of the company website and socials.
When time allowed, I helped prepare an annual Christmas/holiday gift for the team and external partners/clients. I co-organized various social events, from teambuildings, after-hours social evenings (building LEGO, poker, etc), to delicious bi-weekly caterings for the entire company. Seeing the impact of our unofficial committee for employee of the month, where Ranka (the building cleaning lady) being deeply touched by winning it, still remains one of my fondest memories.
Photographer at Marko Alpner s.p.
November 2015 – Present (10+ years)
My professional hobby, as I like to point out, always keeps me on my toes with a desire to tell a compelling story. With a decade behind the lens, I still yearn for new challenges.
I primarily focus on live music photography, with over 800 concerts to date. Currently, I work as the official photographer for the Slovenian rock band Siddharta.
Occasionally, I lecture and mentor aspiring photographers, offering valuable insights and experience, thinking back on what kind of guidance I would like to have starting out.
Web Designer at Sensilab d.o.o.
February 2015 – June 2017
Hired as a designer and front-end developer at Sensilab, where I honed my design and coding skills for a couple of years, mainly in Magento e-commerce CMS, occasionally dipping my toes in marketing.
Designer at Zavarovalnica Triglav d.d.
May 2014 – November 2014
At Triglav, I got my first full-time job as a designer. I was hired to help the digital marketing team, but I ended up doing much more – from designing basic web elements, PowerPoint presentations, and newsletters to complete website redesigns.
Skills
- Project Management: Agile/Scrum/Kanban, roadmap planning, budget oversight, stakeholder management, using Jira, Miro, Google Workspace
- People Management: 1-on-1s, bi-yearly reviews, mentoring, building trust and culture
- Technical Background: CSS, HTML, CMS platforms (WordPress)
- Creative: UI/UX design, photography, social media
Languages
- English: professional working proficiency
- Slovenian: native proficiency
Education
- IAM – Šola za medijsko produkcijo
- 2012 – 2015 (Web Design)
- ŠCRM – Šolski Center Rudolfa Maistra Kamnik
- 2006 – 2010 (High School Graduate)
Hobbies
Avid ultra-marathon runner and road cyclist, LEGO collector, foodie and home barista diving headfirst into speciality coffee. Assistant caretaker of an awesome cat named Pošast.
myStash
One of my hobbies is also enjoying and collecting spirits, primarily Whisky. Currently, as a hobby project, I’m developing my personal whisky tracker while exploring the possibilities and differences between various AI tools and services.
It’s been quite a journey where I wear multiple hats – client, developer, tester and primarily a user, who wants to improve his current Spreadsheet tracking with something more. If you’re curious, you can send me an e-mail to try it out.
Recommendations
How’s working with me on a day-to-day basis like? I asked Katarina, Simon, Jure, Nejc, Urša, Teo and others to share their insights and collected their feedback via LinkedIn recommendations on a separate page.