Software I use, gadgets I love, and other things I recommend.

I get asked a lot about the things I use to build software, stay productive, or buy to fool myself into thinking I’m being productive when I’m really just procrastinating. Here’s a big list of all of my favorite stuff.

Workstation

  • 16” MacBook Pro, M1 Max, 64GB RAM (2021)

    I was using an Apple Silicon-based 16” MacBook Pro prior to this and the difference is night and day. I’ve never heard the fans turn on a single time, even under the incredibly heavy loads I put it through with our various launch simulations.

Development tools

  • VS Code

    I find myself always coming back to this. All the other heavy IDE's have great features but VS Code with plugins is still hard to beat!

  • Intellij IDEA

    Great IDE with lots of tools and great plugins. Hard to beat but very heavy load times for startup.

  • TablePlus

    Great software for working with databases. Has saved me from building about a thousand admin interfaces for my various projects over the years.

Design

  • Figma

    We started using Figma as just a design tool but now it’s become our virtual whiteboard for the entire company. Never would have expected the collaboration features to be the real hook.

Productivity

  • JIRA

    Great project management and issue tracking tool that allows teams to plan, track, and manage their work.

  • Shortcut

    Great dynamic and intuitive project management tool designed to streamline the workflow for agile teams. It provides a centralized platform for teams to plan, collaborate, and track their projects efficiently.

  • Sentry

    One of the best error tracking and monitoring tool used by software development teams to identify, prioritize, and resolve software bugs and issues.