About me

I care about the awkward bits between a good idea and dependable software.

I'm Craig, a full-stack product engineer based in Lincoln, UK. I work across backend systems, web interfaces, native mobile applications and the infrastructure needed to keep them running.

I like software where the engineering has a visible effect on somebody's day. That usually means taking a complicated problem, finding the parts that genuinely need to be complicated, and making everything else feel calm and predictable.

Why I am building Spicy Brain

Productivity software often assumes that people can hold its rules in their heads. Miss a field, misunderstand a recurrence option, or lose track of a notification channel and the tool quietly becomes another job to manage.

Spicy Brainis my attempt to build a kinder alternative. It is also where I do my broadest engineering work: Laravel and Vue on the web, Expo and React Native on mobile, API design, notifications, accessibility, testing, deployment and the unglamorous operational work that makes a product trustworthy.

How I work

I start with the user-visible model. Before reaching for a pattern or a package, I want to know what a person thinks they are saving, changing or waiting for. Good architecture should make that model easier to see, not bury it under abstractions.

I am comfortable moving between product questions and implementation detail. I can trace a reminder from a Vue form through validation, policies, queues and notification providers, then follow the same resource into a native application and deal with device lifecycle, offline state and secure storage.

What I am looking for

I am looking for a team that values thoughtful product engineering, clear ownership and accessibility. I do my best work where engineers can question the shape of a feature, not only implement a ticket, and where maintainability is treated as part of the user experience.

Away from the code, I am interested in the tools and systems people use to make daily life less chaotic. That curiosity is usually what pulls me into a project in the first place.