erlend_sh
August 7, 2021, 7:17pm
1
Some of you know me, but many don’t. I was an early employee at Discourse, having closely followed the product since its inception .
Gone . Forget about it.
I also don’t actually wear glasses.
To catch up on my professional story, I’ve written quite extensively about it on my GitHub profile .
# Erlend Sogge Heggen
**Location:** Oslo, Norway\
**Name pronunciation:** Erlend can be pronounced the same way you’d pronounce “Alan” or “Allen”, as in Alan Watts or Allen Ginsberg. But earl-end is also fine!\
**Pronouns:** he/him\
**Religion:** all and none of them
**Work Brief:** I've been working in open source, games and web tech for the past 15 years.
- 7 years leading the [jMonkeyEngine](https://jmonkeyengine.org/). We made a fully functional *game engine* together, which has been used professionally and is still actively maintained today.
- 4 years at [Discourse](https://www.discourse.org/), first as a Community Advocate and eventually VP of Community. We put the final nail in the coffin of closed-source, proprietary forum software.
- 3 years and still actively involved with the [Amethyst organisation](https://amethyst.rs/), the [Rust GameDev Working Group](https://www.rust-lang.org/governance/wgs/gamedev) and the [Rust gamedev ecosystem](https://arewegameyet.rs/) at large.
**Personal Brief:**
I practice openness to the greatest extent possible, in my professional as well as my personal life. I'm actively trying to decsribe what that looks like in the open source book called [Open Source for Everyone](https://openeveryone.substack.com/p/open-source-for-everyone). Most of my influences are listed in the [Openness Curriculum](https://github.com/equitableopen/openness-movement_curriculum). I also made a podcast called [Value in Open](https://www.valueinopen.fm/), but it is on hold until I can make time for it again.
# **Work-centric bio**
## Wc3 Modding
In the early 2000s I got my start in the online tech world through the [modding community of Warcraft 3](https://www.pcgamesn.com/warcraft-iii/warcraft-3-mods-dota-league-of-legends) (not to be confused with *World of Warcraft* which I never got into because I knew it would consume me).
show original
I am rejoining Discourse as a Product Manager. We’ll expand on what exactly my product focus will be in the next few weeks.
I’ll be at 50% capacity because the other half is already occupied by my life as an indie game developer.
As mentioned in my re-introduction , 50% of my time nowadays is spent as an indie game developer. My main project right now is called Fish Fight, and we released our very first Good Enough
While this means my attention will be divided, 90% of my time in game development is spent communicating with teams and communities . As a game developer I still find myself lacking the all-in-one comms tool that Discourse is on the verge of becoming. A huge part of my product vision will be informed by my own needs as an archetypical gamedev customer.
I’m so so so looking forward to talking a whole lot more about what I’ll be working on. See you all around!
52 Likes
ondrej
August 7, 2021, 7:21pm
2
Welcome back @erlend_sh
Glad to have you back and I can’t wait to see what improvements you will bring to Discourse
10 Likes
Welcome back my man @erlend_sh
7 Likes
Richie
August 8, 2021, 9:39am
6
Welcome back
An interesting read, thanks for the insight!
Can I ask what led to the comeback? Have your paths now realigned?
8 Likes
Sander78
August 10, 2021, 7:55am
7
Oh, I remember those early days (still have the T-Shirt!). Nice to have you back!
6 Likes
That hair? Gone. Forget about it.
Now I wear at minimum two head garments to compensate (jk)
