My work stack from 2020 to 2025

This blog post is to document my work setup from 2020 to 2025. My setup has significantly changed since August 2025 and I blog post on that is forthcoming.

Like most employees around the globe, in 2020, my work changed from 5 days in the office to completely working from home because of the COVID pandemic. Prior to that (pre-2020), since 2010, I have been going to the office 5 days a week to work from a cubical with a Windows PC and two 19 - inch Dell monitors. I recall, having the facility to work from home prior to 2020 but it was limited to only a couple days a month and that too if I had a reason to stay at home (for example, I had a medical appointment and that was closer to home than the office etc).

Anyway, my setup from home involved a MacBook Pro and eventually upgrading from a LG 27inch Ultrafine display to an Apple Studio Display. This setup worked well. In 2021, I got the M1 MacBook Pro 16inch which to this date remains my personal computer.

It was an interesting setup because despite having a complete Apple setup, my work was based entirely on Windows. In my office, there is a Windows PC that I remotely accessed from home using Citrix Workspace on my MacBook.

So for five years, I was essentially using a form of VNC to do my work. It worked well enough, and I enjoyed having a complete Apple setup to do my work. Although I wasnt fooling anyone. It was Windows 10 being accessed over the internet located many kilometres away. Even though I was using an Apple Studio Display, the resolution of Windows via Citrix was not 5K. My work is largely based on using the Microsoft Office suite, so if I am being honest, I do not need 5K resolution.

The other plus point of using a MacBook is that I could still use macOS for my personal computing knowing that Citrix is just a swipe away in another space on my MacBook. This allowed me to still run shortcuts on the Mac, control my home via HomeKit and also use Arc Browser to do browser-related work, for personal or for work.

Controlling my music from my MacBook was also delightful. Its so good to have everything in one computer. This was best of both world because one wouldn't use an employer-provided computer for personal computing and vice versa. Because I was using my own MacBook, my employer doesn't know what I am doing on it because it can only see things I do in the Citrix Workspace app. I liked this.

Since August 2025, my work stack has completely changed. Because of a significant change in IT infrastructure at work, I can no longer use my MacBook to do my work. When I first heard of this change, I was really sad. Months on, I can say, I have made my peace with it and in many ways, my work setup is more seamless now. That is for a future blog post.