01About

AI researcher and engineer with more than 18 years in software development, over ten of them in AI. I help companies adopt AI from strategy to implementation: preparing organizations, building agentic AI systems, and teaching teams to work with AI. My background combines entrepreneurship, leadership and research. I founded and ran my own ventures, led AI and R&D teams, and work on European defence projects with partners across Europe. Today I lead partnerships at ALFATEC Group and CroAI, contribute to national AI policy, and teach computer science as an assistant professor.

02Experience9 organisations

1. 

   Director of Partnerships

   ALFATEC Group · Full-time2020 – now

   ALFATEC Group · Zagreb, Croatia · 5 yrs 11 mos

   1. Director of Partnerships

      Jul 2025 – Present · 1 yr 4 mos

      Lead strategic partnerships and acquisitions for the group. On European Defence Fund projects I handle partner communication, divide the AI work and coordinate teams across international consortia, among them HYBRID (€3.3M, an AI reconnaissance drone) and LODESTAR II (€7.1M, AR and AI for soldier systems). I also run partner relations on national EU projects with AI components.

   2. Director of Research & Development

      Dec 2021 – Aug 2025 · 3 yrs 9 mos

      Led the R&D department and its AI work: projects with international partners, machine-learning models for client and in-house products, and the MLOps practice that kept them running. Also shaped hiring and built the teams behind the in-house products.

   3. Data Scientist

      Dec 2020 – Nov 2021 · 1 yr

      Built machine-learning solutions tailored to client needs, and led the forming of a development team for the company's own products.

2. 

   Assistant Professor

   University of Zadar · Part-time2026 – now

   University of Zadar · Zadar, Croatia · 4 mos

   1. Assistant Professor

      Jul 2026 – Present · 4 mos

      Teaching computer science at the newly founded Department of Mechatronics and Robotics, from its first generation of students. I help build the study programme and bring industry practice and AI research into the classroom.

3. 

   AI Research Engineer

   Stockifi · Contract2025 – now

   Stockifi · Oslo, Norway · 1 yr 1 mo

   1. AI Research Engineer

      Oct 2025 – Present · 1 yr 1 mo

      Research and build agentic AI for a hospitality platform trusted by 500+ restaurants across Europe, from bars to hotel F&B, that gives them full visibility over their food costs. My focus is invoice automation: AI agents that read supplier invoices line by line and match every line to the venue's own items, so recipe costs follow each supplier price change.

4. 

   AI Research Engineer

   Martian & Machine · Contract2025 – now

   Martian & Machine · Berlin, Germany · 1 yr 2 mos

   1. AI Research Engineer

      Sep 2025 – Present · 1 yr 2 mos

      Research and build agentic AI at Martian & Machine, an agentic AI company that helps enterprises move from AI pilots to an AI workforce. I work with the team on autonomous coding agent systems for a large enterprise client, taking on real engineering work inside its codebases.

5. 

   Board President

   CroAI – Croatian AI Association · Volunteer2024 – now

   CroAI – Croatian AI Association · Zagreb, Croatia · 1 yr 11 mos

   1. Board President

      Dec 2025 – Present · 11 mos

      Leading CroAI into its next chapter after a year as acting President: a new statute, the Management and Supervisory Boards, and the direction of Croatia's AI community.

   2. Vice President (acting President)

      Dec 2024 – Dec 2025 · 1 yr 1 mo

      Helped grow Croatia's AI landscape from 200 to 500+ actors, connecting companies, startups, academia and government. 3,600+ educators trained on ethical AI through “AI se educiraj”, 80+ Heroes workshops for students, and a seat in the working group for Croatia's AI Strategy 2026–2032.

6. 

   Founder

   Primo Technology · Self-employed2025 – now

   Primo Technology · Zadar, Croatia · 1 yr 9 mos

   1. Founder

      Feb 2025 – Present · 1 yr 9 mos

      My indie dev studio. I design, build and look after a portfolio of 13 focused AI-powered apps on the App Store and Google Play, among them Primo Notes, Primo Scale and Primo Nautic, together with their websites, all run through an agentic AI development workflow of my own.

7. 

   Founder & CEO

   Sintelly · Full-time2017 – 2025

   Sintelly · Zadar, Croatia · 8 yrs 8 mos

   1. Founder & CEO

      May 2017 – Dec 2025 · 8 yrs 8 mos

      Founded and led Sintelly, a mobile app that pairs AI with cognitive behavioural therapy and reached over 1.5M downloads worldwide. Built and shipped the AI-driven CBT tools that guide users through therapy techniques, making mental-health support available to anyone with a smartphone.

8. 

   President

   ZadarConnect · Volunteer2022 – 2025

   ZadarConnect · Zadar, Croatia · 2 yrs 10 mos

   1. President

      Sep 2022 – Jun 2025 · 2 yrs 10 mos

      Led ZadarConnect, a non-profit that brings together everyone in Zadar interested in tech and business. Ran a series of meetups and co-organised the SheepAI Hackathon (88 participants, €35,000 prize pool) to grow the city's tech community.

9. 

   Technician

   Ministry of Defence (Croatian Air Force) · Full-time2009 – 2017

   Ministry of Defence (Croatian Air Force) · Zadar, Croatia · 8 yrs 1 mo

   1. Technician

      Feb 2009 – Feb 2017 · 8 yrs 1 mo

03EducationPhD, MSc, BSc

1. 2018 – 2025PhD, InformaticsUniversity of Rijeka, Faculty of Informatics and Digital Technologies

   Focus

   Intelligent Computer Systems

   Level

   EQF 8

   Thesis

   An Automated Stock Market Trading System Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning

2. 2016 – 2018MSc, ManagementUniversity of Zadar, Department of Economics

   Level

   EQF 7

   Thesis

   Applying machine learning methods to predict the movement of the stock market index

3. 2013 – 2016BSc, Nautical Studies & Maritime Transport TechnologyUniversity of Zadar, Maritime Department

   Level

   EQF 6

   Thesis

   Evolution of the cyber threat in the maritime industry

04Publications10 papers

1. 2025Automated Trading Framework Using LLM Driven Features and Deep Reinforcement Learning

   Authors

   Ive Botunac, Tomislav Petković, Jurica Bosna

   Link

   Google Scholar

2. 2025Implementation of a Multi-Agent AI System for Financial Trading Decision MakingOeconomica Jadertina

   Authors

   Ive Botunac

   Published in

   Oeconomica Jadertina

   Link

   Google Scholar

3. 2024Comparing Fine-Tuning and Prompt Engineering for Multi-Class Classification in Hospitality Review AnalysisApplied Sciences (CC)

   Authors

   Ive Botunac, Marija Brkić Bakarić, Maja Matetić

   Published in

   Applied Sciences (CC)

   Link

   Google Scholar

05Certifications13 programmes

• 2025Agentic AIDeepLearning.AI · Course

  Issuer

  DeepLearning.AI

  Programme

  Course

  Certificate

  Verify

• 2023Generative AI with Large Language ModelsCoursera · Course

  Issuer

  Coursera

  Programme

  Course

  Certificate

  Verify

• 2023Machine Learning SpecializationCoursera · Specialization, 3 courses

  Issuer

  Coursera

  Programme

  Specialization, 3 courses

  Certificate

  Verify

• 2022Product Owner Training (Certified Product Owner)Product Manager HQ · Training

  Issuer

  Product Manager HQ

  Programme

  Training

  Certificate

  Verify

• 2022Natural Language Processing SpecializationCoursera · Specialization, 4 courses

  Issuer

  Coursera

  Programme

  Specialization, 4 courses

  Certificate

  Verify

06Skills6 areas

• AI agents & LLM appsMulti-agent systems, RAG and tool use, built for production.LangGraphLangChainMCPClaude CodeOpenAIGeminiAnthropicAWS Bedrock AgentCoreChromaDBAssemblyAI

  WhereAn agent platform on AWS for an enterprise client, market-intelligence agents on LangGraph, an MCP server for product analytics, and the Claude Code agent system my studio runs on.

• ML researchDeep reinforcement learning and LLM fine-tuning for financial markets.PyTorchStable-Baselines3TransformersPEFTUnslothTRLOptunascikit-learnpandasTensorFlowBacktrader

  WhereMy PhD thesis and papers on deep-RL trading systems, and fine-tuned LLMs that turn market news into trading features.

• Mobile13 subscription apps for iOS and Android.Ionic VueCapacitorRevenueCatSwiftARKitLiDAR

  WhereThe Primo apps, one shared codebase pattern across 13 products, plus a native iOS plugin for LiDAR scanning.

• WebProduct sites and admin apps.NuxtVueTypeScriptPiniaTailwindReactRedux ToolkitTanStack

  Where8 Nuxt sites, this one included, and React admin apps for client products.

• Backend & cloudServerless and event-driven services.Node.jsFirebaseGoogle CloudAWSExpressDynamoDBSQSCDKPostgreSQLRedisDocker

  WhereFirebase backends for the apps and sites, and queue-driven agent services on AWS with PostgreSQL and Redis behind them.

• EngineeringTested, automated delivery.VitestPlaywrightGitHub ActionsJestCypressMLOps

  WhereUnit, end-to-end and visual tests, CI on every push, and pipelines that take models from training to production.