Joshua Wood

This is not a professional website.

I feel compelled to write things, and against my better judgment, I put them here. You could blame this on millennials (we like to post), former homeschool kids (we’re socially awkward), entrepreneurs (we’re driven to “innovate”), atheists (we have no moral compass), or any number of the arbitrary factors you may learn about me on this website.

This personality flaw (writing things on the internet) has afflicted me for quite some time. I first got online around 29 years ago and never logged off. Twenty-nine years of my words staring through random visitors’ computer screens and theirs bleeding into mine. It changes a person—and now I’ve sucked you into it. We’re in this together now.

My other compulsion is taking pictures. I enjoy photography in general, but documentary and reportage are my favorite. Yes, the sickness runs deep. Case in point: I wanted to be a journalist in my early twenties. Fortunately, that didn’t go beyond one semester, during which I dropped all my classes—but I walked away with a Pentax K1000 and a love of current affairs.1

I take pictures of all kinds of things, but ideally day-to-day life in the Pacific and Inland Northwest, and sometimes post them here with my writing. Others I post on a different website that I made just for that purpose. There are words on that website, too.

If you must know, in addition to words, I also write software and have for roughly as long (29 years, that is). I currently work for Honeybadger.io, a company I cofounded, where, instead of writing software, I work on design and marketing while wearing many other hats. It can be challenging, but it’s a pretty sweet gig.

I’m not very hirable, obviously. But who knows, things change. You may even hire me one day. But not because of this website.

  1. That one semester wasn’t a total waste because while journalism didn’t stick, I learned how to drop classes—which is why I don’t have a Computer Science degree. ↩

Hi, I’m Joshua Wood. I love to create things and learn about the world.

I live in the Pacific Northwest with my wife and two kids. I work as a software developer and marketer by day and love to read, take pictures, and write in my spare time.

Joshua Wood

A few more things about me:

Oh yeah, and most people call me Josh.

Projects

These are some things I’ve made.

federated.press — A Mastodon server for information and journalism.

Heya 👋 — A campaign mailer for Rails. Think of it like ActionMailer, but for timed email sequences. It can also perform other actions like sending a text message.

FounderQuest — A podcast with my business partner, Ben Curtis. Each week we discuss what’s going on in our world of business, tech, bootstrapping, and general nerdery. Some people have said it’s pretty chill.

Exceptional Creatures — A documentation/art collaboration with my wife, and a marketing project for Honeybadger. We’re cataloging Ruby exceptions and turning them into mischievious creatures who are up to no good. Collect them all!

Honeybadger — The badass monitoring platform for web applications. Used by Microsoft, Ebay, Kickstarter, Salesforce, and thousands more.

Upgrade Rails (sold 2022) — The original productized service for Ruby on Rails upgrades! Created in 2013 at Hint, acquired in 2024 by Test Double.

Hint (sold 2022) — A software consultancy specializing in full-stack web and mobile app development. Our clients included Dell, Disney, CodePen, and NationBuilder.

Interviews

A collection of interviews from around the web.