About Darko Tomic

How It All Started

From a young age, around 5, I was on a computer. I always loved them. I was known for being good with computers. But what really bothered me was that it wasn't enough, I envied those who could attend university. They were learning what I lived for.

Since I was a little kid I was gaslit into believing I wasn't smart enough, that I would never do anything with my life. And I believed it, truly did. That's why I was never good at school. I was just playing video games, Warcraft III, DotA, and making my own Warcraft III maps. It reflected on my grades, and I ended up in a 3-year car mechanic school, which doesn't qualify you for university.

So at 18 I had to find a job at some local textile sweatshop. Working there made me realize I was not made for this, and at the same time, I realized I was not stupid. That's the moment I understood everything is possible to learn.

Thanks to the internet, I learned I could learn programming on my own. I started watching tutorials on YouTube. I was always asking why. I spent days on forums and Reddit. I learned about myself and built myself from scratch.

Why I picked games was because I played them my entire life, so it was a logical step. I installed Unity, and here I am.

Today I'm an experienced developer. Seven programming languages. Games, web, mobile, I work across all of it.

The Reality Check

As a self-taught programmer, there was nobody to guide me. I had no idea what to learn or how to learn. I was just watching random YouTube tutorials. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing, and to some degree, I was. What I never realized was that I never learned programming properly, which is very common with self-taught programmers. I had so many holes in my experience, and I learned that the hard way.

As I got more confident in my skills, I started applying for jobs. I got so many interviews, this was before the AI craze, when it was still possible to get one. I failed every single one. The questions I was asked were about things I'd never heard of, because I was just getting by. I could make things work through hacks, tutorials, and copying code from forums. That's how I worked. I thought I was a big deal, that companies couldn't wait to hire me.

Those interviews were a reality check. It made me angry at myself. I realized I was not that good, not even remotely. I accepted it, and I started asking around about what I was doing wrong. My highest priority became improving, so I started studying subjects deeply, from scratch. I had to fix all the bad habits I'd picked up from online tutorials. That was the start of real growth.

Discovering AR

At that point I decided to become a good programmer. I was sick of being an imposter-syndrome programmer. I'd felt like that my entire life, like I was a fake developer. And the truth is, I was. So I started learning, and I discovered AR.

There was a talk going around at the time about AR becoming the next trillion-dollar industry, which, looking back from today, wasn't really true. I went monk mode. Isolated myself, started experimenting. I discovered Vuforia, an engine and SDK that lets you render 3D objects in AR.

What I realized was that most AR projects were just demos nobody cared about. So I stepped in. I started figuring out what was something people would actually love to see in AR. Most AR stuff at the time was gimmick, render a 3D object on a business card, look at it for three seconds, say "awesome," and never open it again.

What I built was a game called Skeletons AR, a survival shooter in AR. I dropped a video of it on r/gamedev, the biggest game developer subreddit then and now. The video exploded. It was genuinely revolutionary at the time. I later learned it was against the sub's rules to self-promote your own game, but the post blew up so hard the mods never took it down. Within a day it was the #1 post of all time on r/gamedev, and it stayed #1 for a full year.

Companies started contacting me. Everyone at that time thought AR was about to take over the world, and everyone was looking for developers. I did gigs for startups in France, the US, Germany, basically everywhere.

The one that stood out the most was a Croatian marketing agency called Media King. They hired me, and we built AR games and demos for Coca-Cola and Fanta. I was the first to pioneer AR tracking on a cylindrical Coca-Cola bottle, you could point your phone at a Coke bottle and a game would render on it and let you play. It was wild. It was on national TV. It was everywhere. People talked about it.

The Boom Years

Deep down, I knew AR was never going to be that big, which has proved true today. It was too hard to get people to adopt it. AR takes a screen, just to look at another thing. I understood early that people prefer their 2D screen, that was true then and it's still true now. The hype was pushed by investors, not users.

So I didn't just focus on AR. I didn't want to be known only for AR. I was a full-stack developer, I could build PC games, mobile games, AR, VR, you name it. I didn't want to limit myself to a single tech. I worked on some really great projects where I learned networking, asset management, memory management, UI and UX development, game mathematics, gameplay mechanics, C#, and more. Most of it was gig work for clients and companies.

Then early 2020 hit. COVID happened. People got locked up in their houses, crypto and blockchain blew up, and let's not forget the Metaverse. I was the perfect fit at the time. Companies competed with each other to hire me. I'd get hired one week, and another company would come back with a double offer to pull me over. My LinkedIn exploded. Recruiters reached out every day. Today's developers can only dream of something like that, it probably will never happen again.

And that's how I got hired at Auki Labs.

Auki Labs

Auki Labs is the company that shaped me into the developer I am today. They had the best developers I've ever worked with. For the first time, I felt like I was improving beyond my limits. Working there wasn't easy, it was a very competitive atmosphere, and that pushed me hard. I can't explain how much I learned there.

Most game companies use third-party networking solutions, which is fine most of the time. At Auki Labs, they built one of the first AR multiplayer systems that made AR apps easy to connect with other players. They pioneered technologies like mobile hand tracking, AR networking, asset streaming, and their own AR games, like Floorcraft: Blasters, a multiplayer AR game.

Working there felt amazing. I felt like I was on top of the world. It was a remote position and highly paid. But after COVID, the world started to open back up. Return-to-office became mandatory, layoffs started. Most people think the layoff wave is a 2025 or 2026 thing, but it actually started in 2022. It hit me too, relocating to Hong Kong became mandatory, which wasn't realistic for me. So we split ways.

But what I learned at Auki Labs is what shaped me into who I am today. All the best practices I talk about in my blogs and videos come partly from my experience there.

YouTube and Teaching

I took some time off after that. Months later, I started my YouTube channel, which "kinda" exploded. It was never a big channel, but it had a big impact.

The channel grew quickly. I got 100 subs in a single day, when on average it takes about a year to get 100 organic subs. That was thanks to my prior experience, I knew what problems other game developers had, and I was the first one to talk about them. I was also the first to openly call out the problem with tutorials, and people related to it.

People asked me to build another video, when the next one was coming. They were grateful for my content. I taught a lot of new devs how to think like a programmer.

My C# tutorial on interfaces is my favorite one. People watch 20 videos on interfaces and it's never clear how they work, until they find mine.

My content was different, and people liked it. I just couldn't make enough. One video took 40 hours at the quality I was doing. I had to work on the paid projects I was hired for, I couldn't focus on YouTube, which I kind of regret today. I wish I'd done more.

AI was also getting better. People watched tutorials less and less, and that affected everyone's content. Rarely anyone is making Unity tutorials today, people just use AI. So even later, I didn't continue, partly because of that.

The other reason I stopped is I've always had a full-time programming job, and I still do. That's why I'm good at explaining things, I'm not a teacher, I work in the industry. The learning experience you get from me is legit.

But I think it's about time to come back. And you'll know when I do.

Tomicz Engineering LLC, The Start of a New Era

I moved away from gig and freelance work and started my own company in the United States. I started doing B2B contracts and getting more serious about how I approach my work.

Even after starting the company, I was still a programmer first, a technical founder. I became more competitive than ever. I went deep into Leetcode, vim bindings and configs, the terminal, a completely new level. I learned new languages. I started building websites. Both the Tomicz Engineering LLC site and darkounity.com are built by me personally.

I also started adapting LLMs and AI into my workflows, because that's just the way it is. Everyone is using it, and I don't want to be left behind.

At darkounity.com, Darko Unity, I'm researching how beginners can learn in the age of AI. AI amplifies an experienced developer, but for a beginner it can be devastating. Beginners today spend months building things, but they have no idea how any of it works. That's going to reflect badly on them. Companies aren't going to hire them over a candidate who actually knows how to program.

So I built a Unity Learning Roadmap , a node-based learning platform that shows you the exact next step you need to follow to become a Unity developer.

My goal is to build the biggest Unity learning community, and I'm working very hard on that. I'll combine it with YouTube tutorials, AI-aware learning, and articles.

I also offer 1-on-1 tutoring for those who want real direction, so they don't end up like I did in my first paragraph.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Darko Tomic?

Darko Tomic is a self-taught Unity developer from Bosnia and Herzegovina, founder of Darko Unity and Tomicz Engineering LLC. He built Skeletons AR and shipped AR multiplayer products as a Senior Unity Engineer at Auki Labs.

What is Darko Unity?

Darko Unity is a Unity and C# learning community at darkounity.com that helps developers of all backgrounds learn Unity properly in the age of AI.

Where did Darko Tomic work before founding Tomicz Engineering?

Senior Unity Engineer at Auki Labs (Matterless Studio) on AR multiplayer technology. Before that, contract work for clients in France, the US, and Germany, plus building Skeletons AR.

Is Darko Tomic self-taught?

Yes. Fully self-taught, with shipped production Unity work for clients across Europe and the US, including a Senior Unity Engineer role at Auki Labs.

What is Skeletons AR?

An augmented reality survival shooter built by Darko Tomic. The launch video posted to r/gamedev became the #1 post of all time on the subreddit and held that position for a full year.

Does Darko Tomic offer Unity tutoring?

Yes. 1-on-1 Unity tutoring is available for developers who want structured direction instead of random tutorials.

What is the Unity Learning Roadmap?

A node-based learning platform on darkounity.com that shows beginners the exact next step they need to follow to become a Unity developer.

Where can I watch Darko Tomic's Unity tutorials?

On YouTube at @darkounity. The C# interfaces tutorial is one of the most recommended explanations of the topic.