When I asked Alex Bajús at the end of our interview to tell me one last interesting fact about himself, he shook his head. He genuinely could not think of one. What he did not realise at the time was that he had already shared plenty.
Alex is our senior full-stack developer. He works from home in Slovakia and builds all manner of things with care. He builds our software, a home for his growing family, and a life in a small rural village.
Alex is a family man and unlike Elan or Joris and Esther, he has always preferred to stay put. I spoke to him about his life before Publiq, about driving taxis through the night, petting foxes, and why working for a Dutch company suits him to a tee.
Alex was born and raised in Slovakia, in the central part of the country. Not the poorest region, but certainly not the prosperous west, with career opportunities near the Austrian border. As a teenager, he attended a secondary school focused on art, where he learned traditional graphic techniques such as lino, wood and copper printing.
“It was very hands-on,” Alex explains. “You carve into the material and then stamp it onto paper. You really have to think before you start, because mistakes are not easy to undo.”
By the time Alex graduated in 2013, the world of graphic design had changed dramatically. YouTube tutorials and Photoshop were everywhere, and the value of creative labour had dropped. Rather than trying to compete in an unsure market, he decided to study computer science, first in Brno and later in Bratislava.
Those years were defined by a combination of work and study. To support himself, Alex took on various jobs, including driving a taxi in his hometown of Zlaté Moravce. Some shifts lasted a full 24 hours, starting early on a Sunday morning and finishing the next day.
“Sometimes I would finish at six in the morning and then drive straight to university,” he recalls. “I would sit through lectures for half the day. It was intense, but I actually liked the job.”
It was never going to be a sustainable career, especially in a country where wages remain relatively low, but it paid the bills and allowed Alex to keep moving forward.
After graduating, Alex stayed connected to academia through his work at Comenius University. At the same time, he explored opportunities elsewhere. He worked in Austria and for companies linked to London, but quickly realised that the corporate culture was not for him. “I spent about seventy percent of my time in meetings,” he says. “I wanted to work, not talk about work.”
When Publiq entered the picture, the difference was noticeable. Conversations were informal, people were approachable, and the focus was on doing the work well. Alex was also intrigued by the opportunity to work on a mobile application, an area he had little experience with at the time.
At Publiq, Alex works as a senior full-stack developer. Around eighty percent of his time is spent on the back office systems that support the app and the organisations using it, while the remaining time is dedicated to the app itself.
It is work behind the scenes, but it is essential. These systems need to be stable, reliable and secure. “I like working on things that just need to work,” Alex says. “Not everything has to be visible to be important.”
From the start, Alex’s goal was to combine this work with a healthy work-life balance. That ambition played a role in a major personal decision.
When Alex and his wife were expecting their first child, they decided to leave Bratislava and move back to his hometown. City life can be expensive and crowded, and they wanted something different for their family.
They now live next to a forest. Foxes regularly wander onto their terrace, and on one occasion, one came close enough for their daughter to pet it. “We wanted her to grow up around nature,” Alex explains. “Not just concrete.” They built their own house, and another baby is on the way.
In his spare time, Alex started constructing a two-car garage next to their house, doing most of the work himself. He dug the foundations, laid the brick walls and placed the roof tiles. At the moment, he is waiting for the windows to arrive, after which the garage should be finished within a few months. “I like understanding how things are built,” he says. “And I like doing them properly, even if it takes longer.”
Working remotely as a foreigner for a Dutch company has its own dynamics. Alex appreciates the directness of his Dutch colleagues, because it matches his own way of communicating.
“They often joke that I am the most Dutch person in the company,” he laughs. “I think it is because I am very direct and practical.”
Not speaking Dutch sometimes means missing parts of informal conversations, but the shared working culture makes up for that. Expectations are clear, hierarchy is minimal, and trust is assumed rather than enforced.
Looking ahead, Alex sees himself staying with Publiq, while gradually reducing his working hours to create more space for family life. Building systems that work, creating a home close to nature, and living in a way that feels intentional mean a lot to him.
Alex may not consider himself particularly interesting, but his story suggests otherwise. It is a story about craftsmanship, about building what matters, and about choosing a life where work, family, and values can exist side by side.