From Classical Philology to Agile Cadence: Irena Katić on People, Practice, and Leading Five Teams at cyan Digital Security

Why this DevStory matters

Covering the session “Irena Katić, Scrum Master bei cyan Digital Security” (Speaker: Irena Katić, Company: CYAN Security Group GmbH) for DevJobs.at, we didn’t hear a standard-issue tech origin story. Instead, we got a compact masterclass in how curiosity, generosity, and disciplined iteration can shape a career in software—starting far from code or sprint boards.

Irena’s narrative is refreshingly plainspoken: from classical philology, to a short stint in project finance tracking, to taking responsibility for five agile teams working across Scrum and Kanban. Two themes stitch it all together: people and progress. “I like to be helpful,” she says. That simple sentence repeats through her story and explains how she treats meetings: not as drudgery, but as the contact points where she can create leverage.

This recap distills what stood out to us: how learning actually happens on teams, what “leading by example” looks like day to day, why a two-week cadence gives stability, and the advice Irena offers to beginners who want to start in agile roles.

From the philology classroom to daily standups

Irena opens with a line that intentionally subverts expectations:

She graduated in Belgrade at the Faculty of Philosophy—in classical philology. Teaching Latin or Greek never happened. Instead, she tried different jobs and eventually joined an IT company as a Project Management Officer (PMO), focusing on the financial side of projects—budgeting, forecasting, and related tasks. That phase lasted about six months. Then came the pivotal moment: her managers recognized she could do more and suggested she learn Scrum and agile methodologies.

She said yes. Crucially, she didn’t learn alone. Irena emphasizes how much her colleagues mattered: they had time to sit with her, teach her, and walk through “many, many stuff.” She practiced as a Scrum Master on internal projects, then stepped up to her first commercial project. It went well. More followed. She states it without fanfare: that’s how she became a Scrum Master.

Learning that stays in motion: Mentorship, internal projects, first customers

Behind Irena’s concise account, three success patterns are evident:

• Mentorship and peer support: day-to-day knowledge transfer, real pairing, and patience accelerate progress.
• Low-risk practice fields: internal projects offer a safe space to build method intuition before facing commercial stakes.
• Gradual responsibility: moving from internal to commercial creates trust, anchors feedback loops, and builds confidence.

To us, that’s more than a resume. It’s a blueprint for how companies can enable non-traditional entrants to gain practical footing: not through one-off trainings, but through supported, project-embedded learning. Irena doesn’t dress it up—she simply lived it: practice first, then apply until the role becomes second nature.

Arriving in Vienna: Joining cyan Digital Security

A notable turn: three years ago, Irena moved to Vienna and started working at cyan Digital Security. She has been there ever since. No grand statement, just a clear signal—she’s aligned with the product and the people.

That line underlines a truth we often witness: in tech, commitment grows from conviction—believing in what you build and trusting the people you build it with.

Five teams, two methods: What the day looks like

Irena works with five teams. Three follow “classical Scrum,” two use Kanban. Both, she notes, are agile methodologies. Iterations run on two-week cycles, and the Scrum ceremonies are practiced consistently. And yes—there are many meetings. She states it plainly, not as a complaint but as context—and pairs it with her driver to be helpful.

From our vantage point, that reveals two important realities:

• Agile is a toolbox, not a dogma: different teams need different flows. Kanban fits continuous delivery and throughput; Scrum supplies structure, roles, and timeboxed events—useful when teams deliver in increments.
• Two-week cadence builds stability: a fixed rhythm creates predictability. Reviews, retrospectives, and planning aren’t “just meetings,” but anchor points where alignment, learning, and improvements become visible.

“Everything is everyone’s job”: Shared responsibility in a small company

Irena paints cyan Digital Security as a small company that nurtures an “everything is everyone’s job” attitude. That’s not chaos—it’s a culture of shared responsibility. Her role stretches beyond the traditional Scrum Master box: she keeps an overview on the business and on what her teams are working on.

This is pragmatic small-company reality: boundaries are porous, which can unlock speed—provided priorities are clear. Irena often acts as the connective tissue: supporting, moderating, synchronizing, and holding a holistic view.

People first: Helpfulness as a driver

What fuels her? The answer is disarmingly simple: she likes being helpful. Any moment she can support a coworker gives her energy. That, to us, is the throughline of her story. When you’re supporting five teams across different work modes, impact rarely shows up in a single number. It shows up in conversations, in unblocking, in protecting the next learning loop.

She loves working with people—especially at cyan, where they’re a diverse mix from around the world. Everyone contributes their part, and the result is a great product. It’s a modest image with a powerful truth: varied contributions, aligned by purpose, create outsized outcomes.

Lead by example, improve in small steps

“Lead by example” isn’t a slogan to Irena; it’s a posture. She strives for continuous improvement—personally, for her teams, as a company, and as a product. No grand redesigns, no silver bullets—just steady steps.

This is agile leadership in essence. A Scrum Master isn’t the person with all the answers, but the one with the next good question—the facilitator who removes blockers, protects learning, and sets the behavioral bar: prepared, respectful, iterative. That style compounds over time.

Two clear messages for beginners

Irena closes with advice aimed squarely at newcomers. Two messages stand out:

• If you don’t enjoy people, this role isn’t for you. She’s blunt: if you don’t draw energy from collaboration—“run away.” Being “kinda” extroverted helps.
• Practice, practice, practice. Progress takes time. The key is to monitor your own progress. If you’re improving, you’re on the right track.

These aren’t flashy lines—but they’re precisely right. If you want speed, you need cadence. If you want cadence, you need patience. And to sustain patience, you need visible, incremental wins.

A practical playbook drawn from Irena’s path

Staying within what Irena shared, we can distill concrete steps—useful for anyone finding their footing in agile roles or supporting engineering teams more effectively.

1) Choose an environment that makes time for learning

• Ask for mentorship: sitting together, walking through topics beats solo grinding.
• Use internal projects as a training field: real tasks, real context, manageable risk.

2) Build routines, not rituals

• Two-week iterations provide cadence and comparability. Hold reviews, retros, and planning consistently—as learning formats, not box-ticking exercises.
• Let metrics inform, let people lead: follow Irena’s compass—be helpful—and direct your effort to removing the next obstacle for the team.

3) Match method to need, not to labels

• Choose Scrum when structure, roles, and timeboxes provide clarity.
• Choose Kanban when continuous flow and throughput dominate.
• Mixed realities are normal—what matters is a conscious, shared understanding of how the team’s work flows.

4) Lead by example

• Model preparation, focus, and respect in meetings—it spreads.
• Show how to seek feedback, make progress visible, and ship small improvements consistently.

5) Observe progress rather than forcing it

• Embed reflection for individuals and teams: what improved, what hindered, what small experiment comes next?
• Value your path: non-traditional backgrounds aren’t a deficit—they’re added perspective.

What engineering teams can learn from this story

We see three organizational lessons in Irena’s account:

• Enablement beats edicts: a culture where colleagues have time to explain and pair accelerates learning and builds loyalty. Irena wasn’t pushed into a role—she was supported into it.
• Small companies, big leverage: “everything is everyone’s job” can work when people share product conviction and have transparency on priorities. Responsibility becomes a team habit.
• Many roads into agile leadership: not every Scrum Master comes from computer science. The differentiators are people skills, a hunger to learn, and a commitment to incremental improvement.

Lines that stick

Some of Irena’s statements are short—and that’s exactly why they endure:

A realistic portrait: What a Scrum Master actually does

Irena doesn’t romanticize the role. Many meetings, much synchronization, substantial facilitation—that’s the work. And that’s where impact lives: making work visible, structuring conversations, addressing blockers, and entraining teams to a shared cadence. In small companies, the scope naturally widens—often including a lens on the business and cross-team alignment.

If you’re considering this path, take Irena’s caution seriously: without joy in working with people, the role becomes heavy. With that joy, it becomes a leverage role—one that shapes organizations and products in durable ways.

For beginners: a first eight-week sprint

Drawing from Irena’s account, here’s a compact starter plan for newcomers:

• Weeks 1–2: Find a mentor; attend daily meetings; capture notes and questions actively.
• Weeks 3–4: Facilitate one internal ceremony (e.g., a retrospective); define one small improvement experiment.
• Weeks 5–6: Maintain a simple Kanban board for a team or co-facilitate sprint planning; measure progress explicitly (before/after).
• Weeks 7–8: Structure a review; harvest learning and define the next step.

The size of the outcome matters less than making progress observable—precisely in line with Irena’s advice.

Conclusion: A path that gives courage

The DevStory “Irena Katić, Scrum Master bei cyan Digital Security” (CYAN Security Group GmbH) invites us to rethink how agile careers form. It shows how far you can go with a people-first mindset, a bias for learning, and consistent iteration. Irena crosses disciplinary lines by holding one constant: being helpful and enabling improvement.

If you want to grow into agile roles, three takeaways stand out:

1) Seek environments that make room for learning.

2) Lead by example through steady, small steps.

3) Measure yourself by visible progress, not by perfection.

We left the session with a clear impression: agility isn’t a label, it’s a practice—and it begins with someone willing to keep showing up, help others, and take the next small step forward.

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