For Corporate Tools · Junior Software Engineer

Joel Gaff, Jr.

Rails developer, looking for a full-time full stack or backend role. Open to remote or Portland, Oregon.

Corporate Tools builds new Rails applications and keeps older Rack apps running, and wants people who like learning by doing. That's how I learned Rails: by building and running my own apps.

Why I'm a fit for Corporate Tools' Junior Software Engineer

Here's what the posting asks for, and what I've actually done.

Experience with Ruby, and with Ruby on Rails (preferred)
Four-plus years of Ruby on Rails. I've designed, built, and run nearly a dozen production Rails apps on my own.
Front-end web development with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
My apps use Hotwire (Turbo and Stimulus) for the front end, and I built the landing sites for Grateful Deploy and Partita Doppia. I've also written a TypeScript phone web app, omacaffeine-phone.
An agile environment with a focus on continuous integration
Partita Doppia and Grateful Deploy run their Minitest suites in a pre-push hook before code leaves my machine, and I deploy with Kamal.
Have a growth mindset and learn Ruby, Rails, and Vue
I'm a self-taught Rails developer, and I've had pull requests merged into Omarchy and other open-source projects. Vue would be new for me.
Some of us can talk about Ruby for far longer than anyone asked
I co-host The Pingback Podcast with Greg Molnar, where we talk about Ruby on Rails and indie products.
Take ownership of your own projects
I handle every part of my apps: the data model, migrations, DNS records, and deploys. Rails Guild, Omarchy Guild, Podium Stats, and Cucamonga are all live.
Remote
I'm in Portland, Oregon, and open to remote roles.

To be upfront: My experience comes from building and running my own production apps rather than from an employer.

About

I'm a self-taught Ruby on Rails developer in Portland, Oregon. Over the past four-plus years I've designed, built, and run nearly a dozen production Rails apps, solo. I handle every migration, the DNS records, and the deploys.

I borrow a lot from 37signals: a single Rails monolith, Hotwire on the front end, and almost always SQLite. I deploy with Kamal, including to my own home server through a Cloudflare tunnel.

I'm looking for a full-time full stack or backend role, open to remote or Portland, Oregon.

I'll be at SF Ruby, Nov 10-11, 2026. If you're there too, come say hi.

Most relevant work

Rails Guild

The directory of Rails developers and the apps they have shipped. Members verify they run the apps on their page.

Rails · Hotwire · SQLite

Grateful Deploy

A local dashboard for apps deployed with Kamal: deploy, roll back, and read logs with a button, and see each app's version, health, and memory. Every button runs one fixed, allowlisted command. Source

Ruby 3.4 · Rails 8 · SQLite · Solid Queue · Hotwire

Partita Doppia

Open-source double-entry bookkeeping for small businesses: invoices, bills, bank reconciliation against a SimpleFIN feed or uploaded statements, standard reports, PDF invoices, and a Xero import over the API. Source

Ruby 3.4 · Rails 8 · SQLite · Solid suite · Hotwire · Minitest

Omarchy Guild

A community directory and showcase for people who use and contribute to Omarchy, with verified contributions and setups.

Rails · Hotwire · SQLite

Podium Stats

A results platform for clubs and teams: race schedules, results, and real-time points standings. The Traverse City Track Club uses it for its Grand Prix series.

Rails · Hotwire · SQLite

Home HQ

A family dashboard for a wall-mounted photo frame and phones. Each piece of the page is a Turbo Frame that refreshes on its own.

Rails 8 · Hotwire · SQLite · Kamal

Cucamonga

Forward your flight, hotel, rental, and activity confirmations and get your whole trip on one board, mapped and timed.

Rails · Hotwire · SQLite

Open source

Pinned on GitHub: Grateful Deploy, Home HQ, and Partita Doppia. I also contribute to the Omarchy ecosystem:

More on GitHub →

Podcast

I co-host The Pingback Podcast with Greg Molnar. We talk about Ruby on Rails, building indie products, and the people doing it. Recent guests include Sam Ruby and Josef Strzibny.

Also a guest on Omarchy Stories, episode 009: "AI Coding: Are We Shipping Faster and Learning Less?"

Listen at pingbackpodcast.com →

Recent writing

All writing →

Let's talk

Hiring a Rails developer? I'd love to hear what you're building.