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

Hi, my name is Andres Diaz. I’m a software engineer from Guatemala, music enthusiast, and kind of a gym rat? I work as a full stack developer for a startup in the US.

I’m someone who gets invested in things really fast and jumps from one thing to another, constantly changing what my interests are.

I started as a web developer and later on moved to hybrid mobile development using Flutter and React Native, which is part of what I currently work on. Recently I’ve been learning Go and C, since I would like to start getting more involved in other areas of tech such as open source and operating systems, and try some self-hosting in the future.

On my own time when I’m not on my computer doing other stuff, most likely I’m at the gym. It’s something that I picked up three years ago and that has been really fun and engaging. I try to be really consistent with it, or as well as I can.

From time to time I like to pretend I know how to cook, so I’ll search up a recipe and try to make it. This usually doesn’t go as expected, but it’s always fun.

I’m also trying to learn a new language, Japanese, which has not been going as great as I’d expected, but there’s some progress.

I like a good story, so searching for new games, series, anime, and books is something I like to do in my free time and maybe have a good watch or read during the weekend. Lately I made the jump to Linux, and it has been really fun just messing with my whole system and configuring it the way I like it, breaking everything and trying to fix it. It’s been really time-consuming, but also I’ve managed to learn a lot, which I really love.

What hardware do you use?

For my work I have a MacBook Pro M1, which despite my not-so-much appreciation for Apple, I can’t praise enough. It has been really amazing; it manages to take everything I throw at it without any issue.

For my personal PC, I have a custom build with the following specs:

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800x
• B550 Gigabyte Vision D-P Motherboard
• 32 GB of DDR4 @ 3600 MT/s G.Skill Trident Z
• Asus ROG Strix 3080 Ti
• Two 1440p@165hz M27Q P Gigabyte monitors

For my peripherals, with the help of a KVM switch in the monitors, I use a Logitech G502 and my ZSA Moonlander for work and also gaming. That’s why I have the wrist rest only on the right side, which makes playing games a bit more comfortable.

For audio, I have a pair of Audeze Maxwell headphones and a JBL soundbar. I got the Audeze since I wanted to try something more on the audiophile side of things without having to compromise on the utility of having a mic and a wireless pair of headphones, and so far they have been really good. And the soundbar is really useful when I just don’t feel like having the headset on every time.

And what software?

For work and just on my day-to-day, I use the following software:

• Kitty as my terminal emulator. Can’t go wrong with this one, it’s fast and has a lot of features that I really like. It has tons of customization.
• Neovim as my text editor. I started using Vim this year, and since that decision I’ve made lots of changes to my workflow and just my life in general. I started looking into split keyboards because of Neovim. I changed operating systems because of Neovim, and that has led me to a different path just trying to learn more about the tools I use. Also, as a person I see that now I’m more interested in everything related to computers and tech, programing and such, things I wasn’t really that interested in before.
• tmux as my terminal multiplexer. I use it to split my terminal into different panes. It’s really useful when I’m working on multiple things at the same time, when I have to run a server and a client.
• DBeaver for my database client. I don’t really work that much with databases, so this takes care of everything I need. It’s really simple and easy to use.
• Lately I’ve been using a new browser called Zen Browser, which is based on Firefox, which was what I used to use. But Zen has been amazing so far, really fast and has a lot of features I like. Since it’s based on Firefox, not much in my workflow has changed.

This is what I use in my day-to-day, aside from other software that’s more of a necessity than a choice, like Steam for games or Slack for work-related conversations, Spotify for music, etc.

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

As of right now, my keyboard is basically stock. Like I mentioned previously, this whole thing about getting into keyboards started this year, so I’m really just trying stuff out first. I’ve been really happy with the Moonlander and just recently started looking into some mods I could apply to it and change my keycaps to something without the letters, and for the switches I’m also planning on changing them to something quieter or “thunkier,” but I’m still looking into that.

What would be your dream setup?

I think as far as my dream setup…I don’t know I think I pretty much already have everything I need. I don’t think I would change much right now. Maybe I’ll get an OLED monitor down the line and a turntable to listen to some music, but for now I think I’m good and really happy with what I have.