Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

My name is Ahmed Elsalahy. I’m 33 years old, and I work as a lead embedded software engineer at an awesome quantum startup called Q*bird. I’m a Muslim, Egyptian, and happily married, and I’ve been living in the Netherlands for the past six years.

It would be super cool if I were the first Egyptian to be featured in ZSA People, but I don’t have the data to back that up (though I did a small search with the keywords Egypt, Pyramids, Nile, and Mohamed Salah 😅, and surprisingly no one has mentioned them before).

My mother is an incredible human being. She raised me and my two younger siblings as a single mom while working full-time as a gynecologist. She always encouraged us to explore, learn, and keep improving every single day. Despite the challenges, she worked tirelessly to provide for us, and even bought us our first computer when I was 13, as it was something we couldn’t afford before. I still remember how badly I wanted one! That moment sparked my passion for electronics, system architecture, and computer engineering.

After finishing my bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, I dove into the world of embedded systems and completely fell in love with it. That passion drove me to earn two master’s degrees in the field, one from Technische Universität Berlin (Germany) and another from the University of Turku (Finland).

When people ask me what I do (usually after I mention “embedded software/systems engineer”), I like to answer with a question: Do you know how keyboards work? I then explain: Think about how, when you press a button, a character appears on the screen, and how pressing two buttons together can create something different. That explanation usually sparks a look of wonder and makes people nod in understanding 😁.

I like to say embedded engineers are the marriage counselors of technology: We help hardware and software live happily together. That means deeply understanding where the hardware is coming from, how the software can help, and making sure the two exist in harmony. When they do, we know we’ve done our job.

This seamless integration between hardware and software is what makes me jump out of bed each morning with excitement. Honestly, I love what I do so much that I’d probably do it for free (but please don’t tell my boss 👀).

Outside of work, I enjoy traveling, playing football ⚽ (soccer), watching anime, and tinkering with keyboards. I’ve been lucky enough to visit 15 countries and live in six of them for more than a year each. All this travel makes me really appreciate the diversity of ZSA People, as it feels like I get to briefly visit a new country and meet an amazing new person every time I read about someone’s journey, setup, hobbies, and learnings.

What hardware do you use?

I ordered the ErgoDox EZ back in 2020 (can’t believe it’s been five years already!). There’s actually an interesting story behind how I ended up giving it away as a gift 🎁 to a close friend, and how I eventually found myself owning both a Voyager (2024) and a Moonlander (2025, which I’m using now to type this interview).

When I first received the ErgoDox, I was super excited, but that excitement quickly turned into feeling overwhelmed and anxious. Let me explain: Everything about its design felt so carefully thought-out, so refined, that I felt the pressure to match that perfection. That meant diving straight into switch hunting (thanks to hot-swap), which pulled me into a rabbit hole of customization such as lubing stems, springs, the whole thing 🤯. I wasn’t ready for that level of customizability.

At the time, a preassembled hot-swap keyboard was a luxury most brands didn’t offer, so I felt I had to take advantage of it. But instead of just enjoying the keyboard, I piled on more: finding the best layout, best LEDs configuration, best keycaps, most ergonomic setup, and so on, and it got so overwhelming that I literally had to create a to-do list just to ride the beast!. And after all that I sat down to type, and managed to do total of 20 WPM 😑.

Add to that:

• Learning touch typing properly for the first time,
• Actually using my thumbs for something useful for the first time,
• Adjusting to a split keyboard,
• Fixing bad typing habits (like my right hand reaching out for the B key in a QWERTY layout),
• Muscle memory challenges,
• Juggling three work setups (office, lab, home) unless I wanted to buy three keyboards 💸,
• And trying to stay productive in a 40-hour work week.

As you can imagine, the frustration built up. I’d work my way up to 30-40 WPM over a weekend, only to fall back to 20 after using a different (non-split, staggered) keyboard at work.

To be fair, I think 80% of that was personal. ZSA really does provide all the hardware and software you need to make the transition achievable, but I just couldn’t find my way through it at the time.

Fast forward to 2023: A close friend visited me from Sweden, spotted the ErgoDox on my desk, and lit up like a kid in a candy store. He had been considering buying one himself, and right then I knew it was time to declare defeat, and I told him I hadn’t managed to integrate it into my daily life and offered it as a gift. To my surprise, he was over the moon, and he even told his partner he wanted to cut the trip short just to get home and try it out 🤣. Honestly, it felt good to pass it on to someone who might utilize it in their day-to-day work.

At that point, I admired ZSA from afar, enjoying every newsletter and blog post, but no longer trying to apply new layouts or use new tools such as Keymapp.

Then came late 2023 and the release of the Voyager. My first reaction was: No. We’ve learned this lesson the hard way. But every couple of days, my brain would tell me it might solve all your problems.

I told myself I wouldn’t buy it unless I sold all my other mechanical keyboards first. So I sold four of them on Marktplaats, and when someone listed a barely used Voyager for sale, I couldn’t resist. At least this way, I thought, I could resell it if things didn’t work out, and I have saved on customs. (Funny enough, I still chat with the original owner, and he even offered to sell me his second Voyager later 😆🤦).

The moment I tried it, I had a good feeling. I started at 12 WPM 👀, but within two hours I was at 40, and by the next day it was 55 WPM at work. Within a week, I was comfortably hitting 80 WPM. That’s when I knew that this was the dream hardware/software combo I had always wanted.

The Voyager made it easy to fully embrace the luxury of flashing layouts through the Oryx configurator. And honestly, it’s hard not to sound like a fanboy at this point, but anyone who has ever worked in embedded knows how ridiculously complex it is to make something like this just work. From customizing a layout in a web GUI, compiling it into firmware, streaming it to the keyboard via USB bootloader, validating the binary, and rebooting into it seamlessly, and doing that 30 times a day if you want. That level of reliability? Pure Mercedes-class engineering 👏.

I spent a year with the Voyager and loved every second. Then one day, I spotted a good deal on a Moonlander and picked it up, and that is mostly because I missed tinkering with switches and keycaps (the Voyager’s low-profile design limited that). To my delight, I hit 60 WPM on my first test using the same Voyager layout, and just a few hours later I was enjoying it similarly.

So that’s how I ended up falling in love with ZSA’s hardware, and eventually trying all their split keyboards. The lesson for me is that, like any instrument or tool worth mastering, you have to accept that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed at first. Be patient, use it everywhere you can, and tackle the challenges at your own pace. The Voyager was my training wheels, and it turned the whole experience into a wonderful voyage (pun intended 😉).

The more you master a tool, the harder it is to replace it, and the more you want that tool to keep evolving. I think Erez and his team deeply understand that, and they deliver on it every day.

There’s other hardware I use daily, too. My main computer is a MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 Pro with 24 GB RAM. It travels between work and home.

At home, my setup includes an LG 34UC99-W Ultrawide monitor (six years old and still going strong) on an IKEA VATTENKAR monitor stand, a Magic Trackpad, and my Moonlander. Two Philips Hue bulbs behind the monitor (I named them Fire 🔥 and Ice 🩵), attached with an E27 clip + splitter, light the space. It all sits on an IKEA RODULF electric standing desk.

My work setup uses a widescreen monitor, the Dell U3421WE Ultrasharp, my Voyager (easy to move between desk and lab), and another Magic Trackpad.

A few other essentials can travel. I love my Supernote Manta tablet (for notes and reading, and the battery lasts two weeks on this thing 🤯), and sound is supplied by AirPods Pro 1 (yes, Gen 1, still solid!) with an ESR Cyber Tough Case (HaloLock).

One special piece of miscellaneous hardware is the “battery eater” 🐕 gifted by a dear friend. The way it works is that it consumes a dead battery and uses it to blink for half a year, draining the last bits of leftover energy.

And what software?

As you might imagine, I love software that gives me deeper control over hardware. On my Mac, I use Raycast (previously Alfred) for quick launching and workflow automation. Lunar lets me control display brightness using keyboard shortcuts. Amphetamine to manage the system/displays sleep intervals. I keep an eye on my typing heatmap with Keymapp. Mouseless lets me move the cursor anywhere on the screen using a keyboard-friendly grid, and Superkey searches for keywords on screen and moves the cursor to them without lifting my hands off the keyboard. BetterTouchTool turns the Magic Trackpad into the ultimate customizable input device.

Visual Studio Code (with the Vim extension) is my code editor; I also use the integrated terminal with Oh My Zsh. PopClip is helpful for quick actions on selected text. I like Obsidian for notes (paired with VSCode + Foam extension, all synced to the same vault for quick markdown editing). My go-to task manager is TickTick.

For focus and productivity, I use Brain.fm. And then there’s Dynamic Wallpaper—because small aesthetic touches matter.

I’m also a big fan of the Shades of Purple VSCode theme by Ahmad Owais and the Monaspace Argon font.

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

My Moonlander is fitted with the newly released Gateron Type R tactile switches, which both sound and feel amazing. On top, I’m using my GMK MITO Laser custom keycaps, which I originally purchased with an older DROP keyboard. I also use the ErgoDox EZ wrist rests (my friend forgot to take them when I gifted him the ErgoDox, and they happen to work perfectly with the Moonlander 😅).

Since I share the same layout with my Voyager at work, I decided to keep the last row of switches exposed (because I have a limited set of keycaps). Funny enough, the dark reddish style of the switches actually complements the keycaps and the original Moonlander thumb cluster button really well.

At work, I use the Voyager with a custom switch mix: Sunset Kailh Low-Profile Choc switches for the stronger fingers, and Kailh Choc Pro Reds for the weaker ones (like the pinky).

I added just four purple 🟣 custom keycaps to add some flair while staying subtle.

To improve ergonomics, I mounted the Voyager at a slight angle using two UGREEN magnetic MagSafe phone stands. It turned out to be a very cost-effective solution, thanks to the exposed magnetic mounting points on the back of each half.

My layout is a simple layer-based QWERTY where I make sure that I can access as much functionality using my thumbs, and it works really well for my use case. It’s mostly shortcut-based where Hyper + letter opens an app, and Meh + letter does functionality within the app.

What would be your dream setup?

My previous boss (and now close friend, shoutout to Wienke Giezeman!) bought the Apple Vision Pro right after it was released, and he graciously let me try it out. My mind was absolutely blown. I can really see a future where we don’t just look at devices anymore, but rather through them.

The advanced eye-tracking system for navigation and interaction made me imagine a world where the traditional monitor-and-mouse combo disappears, replaced by a single, lighter version of the AVP, or something like it. Such a device would make digital interaction fully portable, allowing us to completely rethink the workspace.

I imagine a future with less need for adjustable desks, more freedom in hand ergonomics, and a healthier way of working, since we won’t be sitting in the same place for eight hours straight.

In that future, I’d probably create one or two virtual monitors to focus on, and use a mix of voice and keyboard for data input in the short term. Longer-term, who knows, maybe a Neuralink-type interface could translate thoughts directly into actions within that virtual workspace.

But for now, my current setup is good enough to keep me happy while I wait for that future.

If you’ve managed to read through this whole interview, thank you 🙏, and I’d love to connect and geek out about these things together. Let’s connect on LinkedIn.