Tech Talk: Developer Health

I want to share with you this short talk I gave at Newfire Global Partners in their Tech Talk slot. The title of the talk is “Developer Health: Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice”. The company held it as a virtual talk in October of 2022.

We had some issues with the audio in the recording. As a result of using new conference software, we were unaware that we also recorded the chimes from people connecting the presentation. I hope to clean the audio recording when I have some more time available. Until then, please continue reading how this talk came to be.

A plethora of bad habits

Here is a little bit of background on how and why it was written. As late as 2019 I weighed over 110 kg (225 lbs.) while being 191 cm (6 ft 3 in.) tall. I was progressing well with my career. Thus far I had worked with most of the interesting technologies I wanted to. Granted, I would have liked to have had more exposure to microservices but I was satisfied professionally. However, I was not satisfied with anything else in my life.

I will give you a little glimpse into my habits at the time. Usually I woke myself up with two cups of coffee and 5 cigarettes (usually Lucky Strike Red or Malrboro Red). Almost every other day I went for an after-work beer. I lived alone and most of the company I kept would be called unseemly or just plain strange. My apartment had little to no personal items. I still managed to keep it untidy.

Turning it around

At one point I had just had enough. I was determined to turn that around even if it was the last thing I did. Hopefully it would not be the last thing. Fast forward to today – I brought my weight down by about 20-25 kg. It varies depending on the season. I am running long-distance again. Running is something I am vary passionate about. I don’t smoke or drink anymore. Moreover, I even learned how to fix a few things on my bicycle. My wife and I had our first child this October. We plan to have more.

In my talk I do not focus on coding or infrastructure in any way. Rather, I address the way we evaluate our effectiveness as employees, knowledge workers and creative professionals. I also cover wearables and biometrics. These are important tools that can keep us healthy, happy and productive throughout our lives. We can use the freely available scientific knowledge to gain a better understanding of ourselves then are ancestors could ever imagine.

Ivan Šarić

Engineering Blog