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

Hi, I’m Lily! I’m a senior software engineer working primarily with Java. I’m also quite fond of Kotlin, Python, and Bash. Recently I’ve also started to learn some Svelte and I really like how succinct the syntax is. I’m very interested in automation, so I always try to come up with little scripts to automate mundane tasks, both for work or outside.

Outside of work, I play videogames and I also try to explore my creativity by doing fun side projects. One side project that I’m currently working on is kittypoker.org, a planning poker app with a beautiful Catppuccin color palette. It’s still in early stages at the time of writing.

Aside from that, I like to play around with makeup and photo/video editing every now and then, and I have a too-big-to-handle list of random interests that I will, probably, someday, get back to, at some point in time, definitely. 🙈😊💄

What hardware do you use?

I use a MacBook Pro 16-inch for work (though I wish it was a 14-inch model, I hate carrying this heavy laptop to the office once a week), and a personal desktop PC with Ryzen 5800x3D CPU, 64 GB of DDR4 RAM and an RTX 4080 Super GPU. I currently use two 27-inch monitors; both are 1440p and support 144hz+ refresh rate. I normally have the work computer connected to one of the displays, while the other is always connected to my desktop PC.

Two Planck EZs make my typing smooth and comfy every day, and I use a Logitech Lift mouse and a Razer Basilisk V3. I use an Elgato Key Light Mini for meetings and videos. I also have an Insta360 X3 camera sitting on the extended arm, though I mostly use it when I go skiing.

I also have a 14-inch MacBook Pro, but I don’t use it nearly as much as the desktop PC these days.

After building my desktop PC, I sent a few pics to a friend and he called me “saint mama of cable management.” Not sure if I’m worthy of the title, so we can let the readers decide.

And what software?

I use macOS for work, and in my desktop I use Windows with WSL2 for development. I have a few pieces of software always installed on my machines to improve my productivity.

For macOS, I use Alfred Powerpack for clipboard management and automating a lot of tasks. Ice Menu Bar is a must! CleanShot X does the job on screenshots and OCR, and Numi is my calculator. KeepingYouAwake prevents the Mac from going to sleep.

For Windows, I use WSL2 and Microsoft PowerToys. Advanced Renamer handles batch renaming of files/folders with regular expression support, and Ditto is my clipboard manager. I use Image2PDF and PDFsam for PDF manipulation, because I prefer when this kind of task runs locally when possible.

For all systems I use VS Code for working with most projects, a terminal configured with ZSH, Powerlevel10k, Zellij, and Catppuccin-Macchiato color palette on almost everything. I also use IntelliJ IDEA for Java/Kotlin projects.

I have a lot of custom aliases to help me be more productive on the terminal, but the list would be too big to add here. Whenever I find time to clean them up and put them in a public repo, I’ll share it in my GitHub.

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

My main keyboard is a Planck EZ that I absolutely love! I like it so much I actually own two of them, usually one stays connected to my work computer while the other is connected to my personal desktop PC. I use Colemak-DHm as the base layout, and many other layers that you can check on in ZSA’s configurator tool.

I also go deeper over the details of how I use the Planck EZ as a software engineer on a blog post I recently wrote.

I have Epomaker Nude Pink switches on one of the Plancks and Epomaker Flamingo switches on the other.

Keyboards in the picture: ZSA Planck EZ (two of them!), Corne v4, Keychron Q1 HE, and Redragon K621. Also in the picture: a 16-key macropad and a few prototype PCBs for something I’m slowly bringing to life as a passion project.

The Corne keyboard is quite fun and it’s my first split keyboard. While I like it, I do miss having a few extra keys. Maybe in the future I’ll get to try ZSA’s Voyager 👀

What would be your dream setup?

I’m quite happy with the setup so far, but there are two improvement ideas that always sit in the back of my mind, waiting for the right time for me to put them into practice.

The first idea would be to either replace one of the 27-inch monitors with a 32-inch OLED one, or try an ultrawide OLED display, though I’m not quite sure how well that would play with my limited desk space.

The second idea I keep thinking about is to get a smaller and lighter laptop, maybe a 12-inch one that could fit into my purse, such as the Framework 12, or something like a GPD Win Max 2.

Come to think of it, maybe a dedicated microphone to improve my audio on calls could also be a nice way to improve my setup.