AI-Native Technology Leader
I've spent two decades shipping production software across compliance, fintech, healthcare, and energy — designing the systems, leading the teams, and shaping the organizations those teams worked inside.
How I work
The foundation, the team, and the shipping are not separate concerns. Get one wrong and the others follow.
What I build
Open Apps
A searchable directory of open-source alternatives to expensive SaaS tools — health scores, weekly picks, and an alternatives finder. Kept current by a local agentic pipeline running on Apple Silicon. No cloud APIs, no SaaS tax.
DSForms
Open-source, self-hosted form handling for static sites — own your data, no SaaS dependency. Single Go binary, five-minute deploy. Built entirely through agentic development: architecture locked down before any code was written, then executed in structured sessions. I still build things.
What people say
Engineers I have worked alongside, founders I have advised, and leaders I have reported to.
Baran is one of the most technically capable people I've ever worked with. He has a deep understanding of how platforms should be built from his experience building many platforms in different languages and frameworks. Baran is also very good with identifying technical talent and interviewing them.
Ahmed Al Rawi
View LinkedIn →According to the nature of my work I deal with remote developers more often than not. I can honestly say that Baran is one of the best programmers I had ever cooperated with. Always available, does tasks properly, can cope with troubles well and very stress-resistant. A client Baran worked for was very satisfied, prolonged the contract and instructed him to supervise other remote developers. It is pleasure to deal with Baran and I am sure, working on any other project in the future, he will never let us down, neither a customer nor our company. I will continue cooperation with him with pleasure. He is confident and responsible!
Yuliia Kuliieva
View LinkedIn →Baran is a smart, motivated technologist with a multidisciplinary skill set. He was a natural fit into our startup, providing a welcome mix of design work, software development, marketing/SEO, and business insights. He is a great communicator and seems to at all times have a good attitude. It was a pleasure working with him and we hope to collaborate on something again in the future.
Heath Morrison
View LinkedIn →Baran is an outstanding developer and technology leader. If there is a box – he thinks outside it. He is one of the best solution innovation minds that I have had the privilege to work with. His ability to create customer value by bringing together modern technology differentiates him and puts him into an elite class of developers. I have enjoyed working with him immensely and would love to do so again.
Jonathan Dugger
View LinkedIn →It has been really great working with Baran. He is an excellent developer who has a deep attention to details and always thrives to build a great product. Baran knows his craft, he is the sort of developer that can take an initial idea, tackle it from multiple angles and reshape it into something better that wasn't previously thought of.
Rotem Hayoun Meidav
View LinkedIn →Latest from the blog
On engineering orgs, system design, and what AI actually changes — and what it does not.
The Repository Is All You Need
Tech startups don't need twenty platforms. The codebase is already the product — everything else is a file waiting to live beside it.
The Memory Illusion: AI Persistence Isn't Intelligence
AI memory systems solve storage, not memory. Retrieval precision and relevance judgment are both unsolved — and wrong context actively degrades quality.
First Principles Stopped at the Org Chart
Product decisions get first principles. Org structures get copy-pasted. Conway's Law guarantees the gap costs more than most leaders admit.