On a recent sunny afternoon, Alexander Bogomjakov jumped from an airplane 13,000 feet up — and he didn’t even have to take the day off work to do it.
A senior software engineer on the NVIDIA Omniverse team based in Berlin, Bogomjakov stood at the edge of the small plane and repeatedly went over his jump plan in his head — but he wasn’t worried about his email inbox when he returned to the ground.
Bogomjakov was skydiving during the quarterly NVIDIA free days, two extra days off per quarter when the whole company disconnects from work to recharge. There’s time for fun, family and even leaping out of planes if that’s your thing. Free days are fully paid by NVIDIA, not charged to vacation or as personal time-off, and are in addition to existing country-specific holidays and time-away programs.
As passionate about his hobby of skydiving as he is about his work creating computer graphics and rendering, Bogomjakov is always looking for opportunities to hit the skies in his free time. Driven by a lifelong passion for aviation, he describes skydiving not as falling, but the closest thing he’s ever felt to truly flying through the air.
“I do what I love at work, and I do what I love in my free time. I’m absolutely recharged coming back to work after the extra time off,” he said. “I love my job, and I’m fascinated by NVIDIA and the work we do. I know I’ve accomplished something in my life, and I am a part of something special.”
After touching down with a gentle landing — grinning with exhaustion, adrenalin and pride — Bogomjakov often finds himself replaying his dives in his head long after they’re over.
Here’s how other NVIDIANs around the world chose to jump into their free days and spend their extra time off.
