Software Developer
Making complex things feel simple.
My first job wasn't in software
It was banking.
It taught me that small mistakes have a habit of becoming expensive ones. Accuracy wasn't something you aimed for, it was expected.
I didn't know it then, but that mindset followed me into software.
Eight years later, the work has taken me through startups, growing product teams, and founders building the first version of an idea.
Different products.
Different industries.
Different teams.
The question underneath has always been the same:
Will this still make sense when people start relying on it?
What those years taught me
I've worked on products that shipped every few days, where a rough edge showed up almost immediately for the person using it.
I've also worked on products where every release carried a little more weight because thousands of people depended on it.
Both taught me the same lesson.
The hard part is rarely the technology.
It's understanding what someone actually needs, resisting the urge to overcomplicate it, and building something that's still easy to maintain six months later.
I've found that software usually becomes difficult long before the code does. It happens when every edge case becomes another setting, every feature creates three more, and nobody stops to ask whether any of it is necessary.
That's the kind of complexity I enjoy untangling.
Today
These days I work at Spark Plugin, building tools that help Squarespace designers customize websites without writing code. The products are used by thousands of designers around the world, but the goal isn't scale for its own sake.
It's making something feel simple.
The people using those tools shouldn't have to think about how they work. They should be able to focus on designing their website, not fighting the software.
When someone forgets the tool is even there because it just works, that's usually a good day.
AI in the toolbox
AI has changed how I work.
It hasn't changed what makes something worth building.
I use it every day to explore ideas, prototype faster, work through problems, and occasionally spot the thing I've been staring at for the last hour.
It's made me faster.
More curious.
More willing to try ideas that would've taken days to validate before.
But the work hasn't really changed.
People still don't care what model you used or what framework you chose.
They care whether the software solves their problem.
What I'm still chasing
I'm still interested in the same thing that got me into programming in the first place.
Making useful things.
Things that feel dependable.
Things that don't demand attention once they're in someone's workflow.
Software has a tendency to become more complicated over time.
I enjoy pushing in the other direction.
Say hello
If you're building something people will rely on, I'd like to hear about it.
hello@krebe.dev