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

I am DJ, and I am a DevSecOps engineer for a large company in the financial sector. My hobbies are quite varied, but I enjoy building robots and models, reading books, and playing the bassoon. I tend to hop around when it comes to hobbies, finding things that I enjoy and jumping in wholeheartedly.

I really love anime and learning new languages, though Japanese just doesn’t want to stick with me for some reason. Instead, I have gotten very good at reading subtitles, which has worked in my favor, since I have three dogs who love to let me know when people come by their yard (or the neighbors’ yard). Russian, French, and Icelandic seem to fit with me a bit easier when it comes to learning languages, though I am hardly fluent in any of them.

Aside from hobbies, I help my wife with her many hobbies as well. I have learned quite a bit about sewing, knitting, and fiber work in support of her passions. We hope to eventually get a farm and raise our own goats and sheep so she can make products from start to finish.

What hardware do you use?

Work laptop is a Windows Surface with a 34-inch curved monitor, which allows me to have multiple desktops showing at the same time.

Home desktop is a custom-built system with an AMD 9800X3D with 16 GB of DDR5 RAM, GeForce RTX 5070, and a X870E-P PRO MSI motherboard.

I use a KVM to switch between my work and home PC using the wonderful Voyager and the Night keyboard layout, though I do have a QWERTY layer for gaming if needed. For a mouse I use a Logitech ball mouse, but do have a wireless Razer mouse for games. Headphones are my reliable Bose QC45 and a backup Blue Yeti mic.

And what software?

Right now I am using Windows, though not by choice. It’s still the best OS for gaming, sadly. WSL on Windows at least gives me my own little slice of Linux goodness. I would prefer to use Arch or Gentoo, but Ubuntu has its uses and tends to be a stable Debian-based system. I have also enjoyed dabbling with NixOS, but haven’t done much with it as of late.

Most of my day is spent in VSCode working on Terraform or GitLab pipelines. I love to play with Kubernetes, but that usually ends up with me just playing with YAML files and scripting in Bash.

Steam is my friend when searching for games, Twitch to find entertainment during work—though I also dabble in the Adobe suite to help my wife out. I am terrible at drawing, but given a good 3D model, fairly decent at animation.

For days that offer more adventure, I will use tools like Nmap, Metasploit, or Burp Suite. Then there’s Docker to set up a local test lab or even GCP to build out replica environments with OpenTofu.

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

I use my Voyager as my primary keyboard. It has been an eye-opening experience to use compared to a traditional keyboard. It has also guided me down a road to a small obsession with different keyboard layouts and their usability in the effort to lessen issues with carpal tunnel.

I have taken the Voyager and added my own Kailh Choc Burnt Orange switches, which are a bit on the heavier side, but have a nice click and crisp feel to them. My original layout was based on Norman, since it was an easy switch from QWERTY.

Lately, I have been drawn more to using the Night keyboard layout, but am happy to try all of them to find the best one for me.

My desk has a small shelf so I can adjust the height of the keyboard, the desk, or both to find that perfect angle for myself sitting or standing or even walking on a treadmill.

What would be your dream setup?

More monitors, or larger ones, would always be welcome. Maybe some more space for a regular mouse when gaming. Otherwise, my setup is pretty nice overall. I have plenty of space for my mess as I work through a problem, but it also cleans up nicely when I’m done. Now I just need a mini fridge to keep my drinks cool during long working sessions.