ASIC Engineer  ·  AI Practitioner  ·  Civic Leader  ·  Explorer

Almir Balihodžić

“He, who believes to be someone, has ceased to become someone.” — Socrates

About

Almir Balihodžić

Born on 9 October 1985 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I have been living in Austria since 1992, growing up in the Mühlviertel region of Upper Austria.

After the Federal Higher Technical Institute (HTL) in Leonding, I studied Hardware/Software Systems Engineering and Embedded Systems Design at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria in Hagenberg, earning my MSc in 2010.

My professional career spans RF system engineering, digital design, and six years designing mixed-signal ASICs as a member of the Apple Technology Engineering Austria team in Linz — at the very frontier of consumer silicon.

From May 2017 to October 2025 I served as a Municipal Councilor of the City of Linz.

In January 2026 I stepped away from the desk to become an Explorer by Design — a self-directed study in global systems, human-centric thinking and real-time adaptation.

  Linz, Upper Austria   Austrian   BKS (Native)  ·  German (C2)  ·  English (C1)

Experience

Jan 2026 — present

Global Explorer by Design

Worldwide

The best engineers understand the world they build for. After 15+ years in the industry, a self-directed study in global systems, human-centric design, and the ultimate test of adapting to new variables in real-time.

2019 — 2025

ASIC Design Engineer

Apple Technology Engineering Austria B.V. & Co. KG  ·  Linz

RTL design of digital functions on mixed-signal ASICs — block/function definition, specification, design, simulation and unit-level verification.

2017 — 2025

Municipal Councilor / Member of the Linz City Council

City of Linz  ·  Linz

Eight years in elected office, serving on committees spanning economy, innovation, climate, security and health. Concurrently held supervisory board mandates at IKT Linz GmbH and Creative Region Linz & Upper Austria GmbH.

2014 — 2019

Digital Design Engineer

DMCE — Danube Mobile Communications Engineering (Intel)  ·  Linz

Product documentation, release management, workflow and process automation, collaboration management, and digital development across multiple projects.

2010 — 2014

RF System Engineer

Research Institute for Integrated Circuits, JKU  ·  Linz

RF system engineering research with focus on antenna tuning and impedance mismatch compensation in mobile terminal radios.

Skills

RTL Design

VHDL, SystemVerilog, SystemC — Block definition through mixed-signal ASIC; AMBA/Wishbone; RISC/ARM processor sub-systems; Lint/CDC/RDC; TnD and DFT Infrastructure

Verification

UVM, Formal Verification, STA, TCL-driven regression; Synopsys VCS / Verdi, Cadence Xcelium

EDA & Flows

Synopsys DC / PrimeTime / VCS / Verdi; JasperGold

Coding & Scripting

Python, C, C++, C#, Java, Assembler; Bash, TCL, Make, Perl, SQL, JavaScript, PHP

Artificial Intelligence

LLM Orchestration, Agentic Systems, MCP; Anthropic · Google · OpenAI; Anthropic Academy certified

Toolchain

Git, Emacs, Unix, macOS, SVN, Clearcase, Perforce, LaTeX

Design & Making

Adobe InDesign & Illustrator; Blender, Bambu Studio; Bambu Lab P1S with AMS — multi-material FDM

Leadership

Supervisory board governance (8 yrs); Municipal Councilor (8 yrs); UGL-certified; technical mentoring

Beyond the Desk

Kilimanjaro

Africa’s highest peak — summited 18 July 2018

Flying & Gliding

Pilot training for Sailplanes + TMG (EASA); Radiotelephone Operator Certificate for Aeronautical Services

World Traveller

35+ countries across five continents — and counting

Fitness

Jogging, swimming and hiking

DIY Projects

Hands-on builds — hardware and software projects made for the fun of solving a problem myself.

Experimental  ·  AI-Assisted

Country Dashboards

Built on the road with AI assistance — a single-page reference for country data I'd otherwise have to dig up and research from scratch each time I traveled. Data snapshots across the world — geography, climate, population, economy and more.

Get in Touch

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