Trondheim Developer Conference var stedet jeg valgte for å bearbeide følelser om noe som skjedde for seksten år siden. En Historie Om 0 og 1 er et foredrag hvor jeg forsøker å beskrive hvordan det var for meg å møte veggen og hva jeg ser som problematisk med dagens utviklermiljø. Hvorfor? Fordi vi som jobber med systemutvikling trenger å snakke om de vanskelige menneskelige tingene. Jeg håper at ved å fortelle min historie kan jeg hjelpe andre og kanskje hjelpe til å endre usunne holdninger som er i vårt miljø.

I was incredibly fed up waiting for the chance to make a living writing code. Since I was very young, I’d wanted to program computers for a living. The years it took me to get there felt like an endless wait of learning things I didn’t care for. Looking back though, the learning I didn’t care for was perhaps the most valuable. Anyways…. When I finally was given a job as a programmer I was living the dream, my dream.

In December 2014 I embarked on a new adventure. I joined a startup company as a programmer. The company creates a service is called Pelp and is currently only available in Norwegian. The past 6-7 years I’ve been having roles such as Chief Technical Officer, Front-end Architect, Team lead, etc. Each position has been challenging and I’ve learned so much. In fact, I still learn from things I’ve done many years later by looking back at them.

I was sitting on the floor playing with my son after coming home from work when my wife said: “it’s great to have you back". I was puzzled, what did she mean by that? Back from work? I hadn’t been away or anything so it had to be that, right? After putting our son to sleep I asked her what she meant. She said it was nice to see me present and participating when returning from work.

I am a recovering work-a-holic. In my first job I worked myself to the ground. At one point I was unable to sleep and led a very unhealthy life. This contributed to me hitting the wall. Since then I have been more conscious about how I manage my time and how to handle pressure. However, I love what I do and the borders between work and hobbies are very blurred. I realize that I will never loose the stuff that drove me into being burnt out at an early age.