Full-Stack Software Engineer.
My name is John Baker and I'm a Software Engineer 2 at Garmin (Mid-Level), with expertise in the Node.js web tech stack. To me, writing software is about balancing the demands of the present with the unknowns of the future, while trying to maximize commmunication through nuances of the implementation.
At the application level, I'm always thinking about SOLID principles and clean code. I focus on getting each unit of logic correct in a way that demonstrates intention to the next person who reads it (which oftentimes is myself). My favorite type of code is the one that I can trust won't need to be revisited.
Beyond the service level, I'm interested in system design. Things like dockerizing applications, scalability with Kubernetes, hardware constraints, traffic throughput, and database integrity are where my extra-professional experience leads me.
My long-term project experience, primarily LeaseFinder, has been an exercise of applying my current skillset while learning new skills in product, infrastructure, dev-ops, and AI tooling. My goal is to sharpen my abilities so that I can apply them towards real-world problems.
Experience
Software Engineer 2 — Garmin
June 2025 — Present- Designed and implemented a cross-team validation system for GAME, a flight deck configuration tool supporting $500M in annual OEM revenue.
- Incrementally modernized a 10+ year legacy Electron codebase by standardizing TypeScript configurations, resolving data model inconsistencies, improving tooling, and reducing onboarding friction for new engineers.
- Scoped requirements, set estimates, and planned release capacity for quarterly releases across a team of 2-3 engineers via CCB meetings with stakeholders.
Software Engineer 1 — Garmin
May 2024 — June 2025- Removed Istio service mesh from production Kubernetes clusters, eliminating a recurring class of networking errors and simplifying the operational footprint of the team’s services.
- Proposed and implemented the first integration of AWS S3 with Garmin’s services, enabling OEM software distribution via public cloud while maintaining full security compliance.
- Authored C module tests to validate system behavior for the Axis avionics component.
Software Engineer 1 — Garmin
March 2022 — June May 2024- Provided front and backend support for the Garmin in-house tool suite, operating in the TypesScript, Node.js, React.js, and SQL tech stack; authored unit and integration tests with Mocha.
Projects
LeaseFinder
theleasefinder.comA web app and Chrome extension for capturing and organizing apartment listings while searching for an apartment. There's a lot of friction with finding apartments for renters, and it only serves to disadvantage them in a harsh housing market. LeaseFinder is a renter-focused platform that keeps everything (saved listings, notes, comparisons) in one place.
Ralph Portfolio
johnbaker.dev ↗The ralph personal portfolio is this webpage. Ralph is an AI prompting technique that automatically resets the context window as it fills, and continues to iterate until the final acceptance criteria is meet. AI has turned single page applications (SPAs) into a trivial excercise, especially for web professionals, so instead of spending my time on the implementation of this SPA, this portfolio is a way for me to test my ability to clearly articulate requirements and guide a model through implementation. The goal of this portfolio is to write as few lines of code as possible.
Stack
Languages
Frontend
Infrastructure
Backend & Data
Tooling
Ralph History
I wrote most of the content on this page, but each section is isolated in its own markdown file. I don't that I'd qualify that as 'coding'. This git commit history proves the ralph-loop oriented history of this portfolio — even including the repository initialization.