Thank you to Susan Keohan, for resurrecting BIF, and to Nabheet Madan for challenging me to blog it forward. I’ll try to keep this to the point, and it might get a bit visual, but let’s go! ? 

About me

I live in a small town about 1 hour south of Oslo, called Mysen, with my wonderful wife and our two boys. Here we own a small house with a garden, were we do our best to build a good life. We try not to take things too serious, and have lots of fun together, every day. I work at a small place called Kolbotn, right outside Oslo.

[Le map]

[Me and my family celebrating 17. May, the Norwegian Constitution Day, and Samuels (the youngest) birthday]

[Me and my wife Camilla]

[Samuel(5yrs), Leopold(7yrs), and the Siberian Husky Frigg(Many yrs)]

[The boys, roaming the streets of Mysen]

[Renovation is the biggest danger of buying a house. Luckily kids love to help]

Even tough I’ve “only” worked as a developer for around 4,5 years, I’m a home grown nörd that has been tinkering with computers since I was around 10 years old, and as a youngling harvested experience using the good old technique of learning by burning. There’s few better ways to learn how a computer work, than by messing it up and trying to fix it again. 

Born in Oslo in 1980, I grew up in the dawn of the home computer age. Someplace around 7-8 years old, I got access to my first computer, a Toshiba T1000 laptop. It was a bit too early, since I didn’t have anyone around me to help me do anything useful on it, but it sparked the interest for computers and technology and fuelled my drive when it matured on me a couple of years later.

[The one that started it all]

[The only known picture of me on my first own computer, in my teens. There is too much weirdness here to try to explain. A million nerd points to the first who can name the colourful book on the left edge of my desk. It’s very orange, with a blueish title card]

By coincidence, and the fact that we have mandatory military services in Norway, I got a small diversion on my path towards Nördvana. I ended up staying in the Norwegian Army for 15 years, but luck would have it, that I would get the opportunity to go from commanding German hardware to developing on German software. ? 

[From my 4th and last deployment to Afghanistan, in 2010]

[Great piece of German engineering; the Leopard 2A4 in cold Norwegian winter weather]

Fun fact

I know how to juggle, with basic juggling balls (and oranges). When my wife found out, she instantly planned to use it as a fallback plan to hire me out to the circus, if this SAP thing doesn’t pan out.

[A great picture from the year 2000. Don’t ask about the fake beard…]

Questions

What do you do apart from SAP in your free time?

It’s probably related to computers and stuff. Either I’m doing something that can benefit my work with SAP tech, or something completely different like pursuing my long lasting dream of doing game development. Or some silly project I started on a whim. I also try, from time to time, to get some gaming going. I have fallen a bit of the train, after getting kids. But I’m a sucker for a good single player game, that I can play on my own pace. 

How do you balance your life between work and family/personal time?

This is one that is painfully hard, and I still struggle to find the balance. When I get home from work, the time until the kids go to bed is holy. Then I try to spend some quality time with the love of my life, before I try to pinch in some hours for my personal stuff. The problem is that I have too many balls in the air, and the first casualty is usually sleep. That said, I couldn’t have done anything without the fantastic support of my wonderful wife, who is the guardian of the home. She knows everything that needs to be done, and lets me know when I need to do something.

What would you choose if given a choice between coffee or tea and why?

Tea. I’ve had so much terrible coffee during my years in the army, that it has become a prominent part on the list of things I avoid if possible. Along with being cold, and being outside in rain, among others.

If you were 20 again, what would you study?

That is a very hard question, because it is my journey that has lead me to the point I’m at. But if I had the chance to go back to school, I would probably take computer science, to try to combat my imposter syndrome.

What is your #1 recommendation to someone who wants to become a developer in the SAP ecosystem?

One of my biggest recommendations is to learn JavaScript. JavaScript is the great enabler, that will open up so many new avenues. You can go to backend work, with the Cloud Applications Programming Model and NodeJS. Or just plain vanilla NodeJS if you want to. You can go frontend with OpenUI5, or one of the other big frameworks. You can create mobile applications, with the Mobile Development Kit, or just vanilla NativeScript. Or you can go serverless to enhance workflows, or full on machine learning with Tensorflow JS. If you know you want to create, but don’t know where you want to go, go for JavaScript. It’s a great place to start.

What is your professional life dream?

My dream is to become someone that people trust and come to for advice. One of the biggest virtues in life, it passing on knowledge. And one of the greatest gifts one can receive, is the opportunity to do it.

Where can I find you online?

I’m pretty easy to find on the Internet, and I think a Google search might give a good start. But if someone is interested to tag along with me on my ride going forwards, you can do it at:

Twitter (this is where is live): https://twitter.com/rsletta

Instagram (where I share some shenanigans from time to time): https://www.instagram.com/rabsletta/

LinkedIn (the mandatory platform that everyone despise): https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsletta/

Next in line

I would like to challenge Gregor Wolf , Wouter Lemaire, Volker Buzek,  Anne Johnson, Anne Kathrine Petterøe, and Craig Cmehil to blog it forward. The questions for these fine people:

1. How did you end up working with SAP technology?
2. What is your favourite hobby?
3. Do you have a secret skill, that few people know about?