Soldering is zen. It's slow and careful, but satisfying. Like coloring with a 350°C iron. You gently heat the pad with the iron, and slowly introduce the solder. Flux will guide solder to the pads. Don't worry if you mess up a couple, by the 72nd pad, it's becomes second nature. Micro controllers are a little trickier, but planning and slow pace really takes care of it. You might burn off a pad if you keep the iron too hot for too long, but not long enough and you might get a cold joint that isn't complete. Look up tutorials for a beetter idea.
I went for handwired initially, but didn't have a great seat for the knobs or board. Hot glue got annoying, so I got splitkb aurora corne and snapped off columns.
I used QMK to do stuff. You can use python pip to install qmk.
python3 -m pip install qmk
qmk setup # after installing
Then config with
qmk config compile.keyboard=splitkb/aurora/corne/rev1 compile.keymap=default
Flash to each half with
qmk flash # double click reset to flash
There is a ton of amazing customization options. I have layers and combos for passwords, pins, shortcuts, macros, gaming, etc...
https://splitkb.com/collections/keyboard-kits/products/aurora-corne