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Joshua Karnad

Forward Deployed Engineer

I build software for people doing the job in front of them.

Open to forward deployed roles

About

I build tools for people who are in the middle of a job, not waiting at a desk for software.

A long government form. A bottle on a bar shelf. A receipt photo already sitting in the Photos app. I find the part that wastes the most time, then ship something small enough to use the same day.

I'm looking for a forward deployed software engineer role. That work is to sit with the job, build the tool, and stay until it fits how people already do things.

Projects

  • 2026

    Boss Proposal

    Upload a government solicitation and get a checklist of every requirement, who is responsible, and when it is due, with the page it came from. A team can assign the work, check it off, and mark the proposal submitted. An earlier page that only drafted proposal text grew into this workspace.

    • Next.js
    • TypeScript
    • React
    • OpenAI
  • 2026

    Pour Gauge

    Take a photo of a bottle and see how much is left, how many pours that is, and what it is worth. The numbers are estimates from the picture, meant to be checked before anyone orders or reports.

    • Next.js
    • TypeScript
    • OpenAI
  • 2026

    Receipt sheet

    Pictures stay in the Photos app. When a new one shows up on the Mac, this checks it, pulls the store, date, and total from receipts, and skips everything else.

    • JavaScript
    • Swift
    • macOS

Approach

  • 01

    Sit with the real task

    Watch the job before writing the tool. The slow part is usually a document, a photo, or a step people already do by hand.

  • 02

    Ship the smallest useful piece

    A checklist, a count, or a row in a spreadsheet. Something a person can try the same day.

  • 03

    Put it where the work already happens

    The Photos app, a PDF they already have, a picture from their phone. The tool should meet them there.

  • 04

    Tighten it after they use it

    The first version is a guess. The next version comes from what they actually do with it.