Finn EllisInterview
Automation engineer (Slack)
Adapted from Finn Ellis's interview on Uses This, published 24 August 2018. The kit is drawn from their answers and each reason is an excerpt, lightly edited. Shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full interview ↗
Is this you? Claim this kit →Hardware
For work, I use a 15" MacBook Pro, which is the first Mac I've had since they looked like toasters.
When I'm physically at my desk I plug it into an LG 27MU88 monitor, which I'm a fan of, because one cable gets me laptop power and all my peripherals in addition to the extra screen.
I use a Kinesis Freestyle 2 split keyboard on the recommendation of a colleague who assessed the ergonomics of my desk setup.
My computer at home is a second generation ThinkPad X1 Yoga.
In my pocket there's a Google Pixel 2 XL.
I've almost never owned dedicated gaming hardware, including consoles, but I did pick up a Nintendo Switch a couple months ago.
Communication
I'm an automation engineer on the desktop team at Slack, which means that rather than working on the app, I make it easier for other people to work on the app.
Productivity
Browser
Chrome has been my default browser for a long time, originally because it was the one with separate user profiles, and these days because it already has all my stuff in it.
Notes
Coding & Development
When I started this job, I asked my team, "Hey, what do you all use to edit code?" and they said VS Code, so I use VS Code.
Media
Storage
This is actually the only reason I have an iCloud account; I realized that my Notes files were the one important thing I wouldn't be able to get back if my work laptop got stolen.
Other
For making games I use Pico-8, a low-fi virtual console with a great community.