Hi, I'm Solomon.
I build software.
I have for the better part of a decade.
Sometimes for companies. Sometimes for clients. Sometimes for myself because an idea wouldn't leave me alone until I'd built it.
I still enjoy it just as much as when I wrote my first line of code.
When I started, I thought programming was about learning languages.
JavaScript. PHP. Python. React. Node.
Over time I realised those are only a tiny part of the job.
The real job is understanding people well enough to build something that feels obvious to them.
That's much harder.
And much more rewarding.
The first time I got paid to write code
I still remember how surreal it felt.
Someone had a problem they couldn't solve, and somehow the thing I'd spent countless late nights teaching myself had become genuinely useful.
That feeling hasn't really gone away.
Since then I've worked on products ranging from SaaS platforms and internal tools to browser extensions, no-code products and AI-powered applications. At Spark Plugin, I've spent the last few years building tools that help thousands of Squarespace designers customize websites without writing code. Before that I worked on real-time web applications at Threadslist and helped build production applications at Kindle Systems.
The technology changed.
The motivation didn't.
I like making complicated things feel simple.
Not because simplicity is fashionable.
Because complexity has a cost.
Every extra click.
Every confusing setting.
Every feature that needs explaining.
Someone pays for that.
Usually the user.
I've spent enough time maintaining software to know that writing more code isn't always progress. Sometimes the biggest improvement comes from deleting code, removing options, or asking whether a feature needs to exist at all.
Somewhere along the way...
...I stopped thinking of myself as just a developer.
I still enjoy solving technical problems.
But I enjoy product problems even more.
Questions like:
"Why would someone use this?"
"What's the smallest version of this idea?"
"Can this interaction disappear completely?"
Those questions have shaped almost every project I've worked on.
Side projects keep me honest.
Most of what I've learned didn't come from my day job.
It came from building things that nobody asked me to build.
A browser extension because I wanted a better workflow.
An AI tool because I was curious.
A small experiment that failed after two weekends.
Another that quietly turned into something people actually used.
Side projects have a way of exposing assumptions.
They don't care how experienced you are.
They simply tell you whether your idea was any good.
AI changed my workflow.
Not my standards.
I use AI every day.
It helps me prototype faster, explore ideas, explain code, write tests, and occasionally point out something I've been staring at for an hour.
It's become another tool in the toolbox.
Useful.
Powerful.
But still just a tool.
The best products I've worked on weren't successful because they used AI.
They were successful because they solved a real problem.
Things I've learned
Good software isn't finished when every feature has been added.
It's finished when removing another feature would make it worse.
People rarely notice performance.
Until it's slow.
Code is easier to rewrite than assumptions.
Question those first.
The best engineers I've worked with were also the best listeners.
Shipping teaches faster than planning.
Outside the editor
I enjoy mentoring developers, exploring new product ideas, and occasionally disappearing down rabbit holes that start with "there has to be a better way to do this."
Those rabbit holes are responsible for some of my favourite projects.
Thanks for stopping by.
There's a good chance I'm building something new right now.