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

I’m Ayoub Fakir, a senior data engineer, currently a consultant working for different companies in Paris. I also teach at the ESGI Engineering School in Paris as well as the Computer Science Engineering School of Paris Créteil University.

Outside of work, I love reading literature books and talking in and assisting in conferences. I like to take long walks to meditate.

What hardware do you use?

I’m currently running a Lenovo ThinkPad E595 (1TB SSD, i7 and 32GB of RAM). I also use two 27” Samsung Curved Monitors connected to a Lenovo USB-C Gen2 dock station. Of course, my keyboard of choice is the latest Ergodox EZ. I also use the Logitech MX Master as well as a Magic Trackpad that I find very handy.

I also have Bose QuietComfort 35 II headphones with Noise Cancelling for when I need to focus, as well as AirPods Pro that I use for my calls.

And what software?

My computer runs Manjaro 18. I mainly use Intellij IDEA for my Scala/Python projects, Terminator—in which I use Vim a lot—as well as Chrome for navigating the internet. Slack is the tool I use the most for professional communication.

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

Because of my back pain, I tend to widen the distance between my two keyboard parts to keep a healthy posture. As a layout, I use Dvorak as my main layer. I began using Dvorak only two months ago—and I’m loving it already!—but I keep the standard QWERTY one as my third layer when I need to type fast.

For keycaps, I use the blank black ones that I got from Ergodox. I love them! Cherry MX Blue are my keyswitches of choice (they make a wonderful loud noise 😀).

What would be your dream setup?

I find my current setup pretty decent, but I’d love to have more space so I can have two bigger screens where I could keep using my current laptop to one, and a Macbook Pro connected to the other, maybe with a wireless Ergodox Keyboard to switch between one another easily.