[wulfstan]

OPs experience working their way up the keyboard stack is very similar to my own. I settled on the Dygma Raise. I now own one of the Raise and Raise 2.

Yes, they are a lot of money. I don’t have time to game any more, and they clearly focus mainly on gamers. But if you’re a software / IT person your wrists are your livelihood, so for goodness sakes invest in them. There is no silver bullet and you will probably have to try a number of possible solutions if you suffer from wrist and forearm pain when working, but do not ignore it and take your workplace ergonomics seriously.

For younger engineers, learn to minimise your “travel” and learning editor shortcuts, terminal shortcuts and similar so that you can be smoothly productive with constantly shifting from mouse to keyboard and back again. And take regular breaks! Get up and walk around. If you are WFH get out for walk at lunch.

In general, care for your body so that you may write code into your 80s.

[lrem]

If only this had the F key row. Why is "fewer keys" the first decision that every fancy keyboard designer starts with :/

[2716057]

Because the fancy keyboards all support layers, and one key ergonomic principle is to avoid unnecessary finger travel ;)

Default layers on the Dygma Raise 2: https://dygma.com/pages/first-time-using-the-dygma-raise-2

[layer8]

Modifier keys are the main thing that’s causing me RSI in the first place.

[2716057]

Place modifiers on the thumb keys or - if you don't have any of those - use home row mods!

My ranking of measures from most effective to least effective:

1) Do everything you can to minimize workload of weak fingers (pinky & ring fingers). Just flipping control and caps lock is often not enough.

2) Split keyboard; halves roughly shoulder-width apart. Optimize for straight wrists both at rest and "in action". This usually results in zero tilting or slightly negative tilting.

3) Concave designs.

4) Tenting.