Engineer, experimenter, persistent question-asker.

I’m John Goalby, a software engineer who likes turning awkward, repetitive, or poorly understood problems into useful software.

My work has crossed web development, automation, developer tooling, and generative AI. I’m happiest when I can understand how people actually work, find the friction in a process, and build something that makes the next attempt easier.

How I approach the work

• Start with the real problem. The first description of a problem is rarely the whole story.
• Make the useful path obvious. Good engineering and good product design reinforce each other.
• Respect constraints. Limited tools, unusual devices, security requirements, and legacy systems often produce the most interesting decisions.
• Keep learning in public. Writing clarifies what I know and exposes what I still need to understand.

That last point is why this site includes both polished technical guides and less formal observations. They are all pages from the same notebook.

What I’m exploring now

I’m experimenting with practical applications of language models, and developing new projects that combine engineering with product thinking.

Build something useful. Observe what happens. Improve the next version.

Elsewhere

You can find my code on GitHub and my professional history on LinkedIn.