Programmers have the power to transform the world by making many positive changes to our everyday lives. It’s International Programmers’ Day and we have quite a few devs in-house to celebrate! But today we’d like you to meet Karianne, David, Igor and Trond Kjetil (TK will start with us later in the fall).
We talk to them about why they love what they do, why they joined Vivaldi, and ask them a trick question: “What would you have been if not a programmer?”
Why do you love what you do?
I love that as a developer you have to be constantly learning new things and that you get to solve challenging problems. I enjoy both the detective work (tracking down difficult bugs), and using my creativity and analytical skills to build things, to create features and products that are useful to people in their everyday lives. I think today it is important that we, developers, use our skills to improve the world, to create products and services that add value and solve real problems, that we look beyond the immediate technical task to what purpose the things we create have in today’s world.
– Karianne
For me, development is really the engineering of software. I like that from lines of source code you can build programs for computers and various devices that hopefully do something useful. And the tinkering aspect is rather splendid. It is very easy to try new things. Of course, that may easily create bugs, but bugs can be good as one learns much when investigating them.
– Igor
What I like the most about being a software engineer is that it never gets boring. It holds my brain fit because every day I learn new things. Software development is exciting because you create something. It is a craft – you need to be creative all the time.
– David
I love being able to create something out of nothing, willing amazing things into existence with my fingertips. I like to learn new things, and being a developer lets me (forces me) to learn new things every day.
– Trond Kjetil
Why did you join Vivaldi?
I want to contribute to making Vivaldi an even better browser. Vivaldi needs a mobile browser, and contributing to getting the mobile version out would be great.
– Karianne
Modern browsers sometimes forget that without users the web is dead. With Vivaldi, it is very nice and refreshing to see a browser that cares about the user. I want to continue that tradition and bring more control to the user and turn the browser into an even more powerful yet user-friendly tool.– Igor
Working in front of a computer all day, I’ve grown addicted to listening to some sort of music while working. Between YouTube, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Pocket Casts, Spotify and random music blogs and storefronts, music has never been more available. However, the user experience for listening to audio in the browser can be better. I’d like to work on that!
– Trond Kjetil
The reason I joined Vivaldi is that this company is such an innovative and family-friendly company. I can work more or less from anywhere. For me, in particular, this is a huge benefit. I’m flexible and I can take care of my son when this is required. At Vivaldi, you are not just a number but a person. Everyone is taking care of you. It feels good being part of this company.
– David
What would you have been if not a programmer?
If I hadn’t become a developer, I definitely would have been a landscape photographer or a wilderness guide (actually I’m doing that already from time to time during summer) or even both. Untouched nature is my passion and I love to take unique photographs of wild places. Our planet is such a beauty and there are still so many undiscovered regions. As a wilderness guide, I like to take people off the beaten track and strengthen their awareness of our gorgeous planet.
– David
It is hard to tell. Perhaps I could have been a data engineer or a physicist. But then recently I discovered that I enjoy long drives of 1000 kilometers or over. So maybe I would have become a long haul trucker!
– Igor
If I hadn’t become a developer, I’d still be in some sort of creative field. I love video games and could see myself as a video game designer.
– TK
I would probably have become a scientist. I considered doing a Ph.D. after my Master Degree in Computer Science but found I wanted to have a ‘real job’ first. After joining Opera as a developer on the first Wii Browser and later the Desktop browser, I never regretted that decision. I’ll do my Ph.D. when/if I retire!
– Karianne
Happy International Programmers’ Day to the Vivaldi team and all our developer users! What would you have been if you hadn’t become developers?
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.
