About Me

Hi, I’m Josh Johnson. I’m a software developer and engineering leader living in Raleigh-Durham, NC. Most people don’t call it that but I actually live in Raleigh city, but Durham county. It’s weird. My congressional district changes pretty much every voting cycle. I enjoy Durham much more, so let’s just say Durham.

I love creating software for Mac and iOS, but have also been getting my mind back into modern web development. The first decade of my career I build AutoCAD plugins and web application with C++ and .NET, while exploring Mac development as a hobby. When the iPhone shipped in 2007, I focused more on being serious about learning Objective-C and Cocoa—leading to a few personal apps and an internal sales Mac app. Later, I’ve worked with many teams building iOS apps, led teams of iOS developers at Two Toasters (later Ticketmaster) and Grubhub. Previously, I was the organizer of Triangle CocoaHeads and NSCoder Nights and occasionally speak at conferences about Cocoa development. Currently, I’m a Sr. Design Engineering Manager at Adobe focusing on Design Engineering.

In my spare time, I’ve started doing more photography and some filmmaking. I enjoy learning languages, currently studying Italian 🇮🇹—Previously focused an many languages including German (Deutsch), Japanese (日本語), Ukrainian (українська мова), Spanish (Español), and European Portuguese (Portugués). I also really enjoy cooking and sometimes keyboards. I have too many interests and spend a lot of my time trying to prioritize them, which means I end up watching too much on YouTube.

Previously

2024

• September: Started a new hobby, Watchmaking.
• January: Started new blog about learning Italian, cooking Italian, and Dual Citizenship

2023

• March: Started the process of gaining Italian Dual Citizenship and started learning Italian 🇮🇹
• YouTube channel changed from “Two Human People” to just Nat and Josh.

2022

• August: Joined Adobe as a Sr. Design Engineering Manager.
• Started a new portfolio site for my photography. My intent is to post photos that are my favorite or >4 stars in Lightroom there.

2021

• Continuing at Grubhub, role reframed from an iOS Team Lead to an Engineering Manager for Diner Apps. Working with teams of Android, iOS, and web engineers.
• Rebooted our YouTube channel “One Charge Trips” to be less EV focused and just be a place we can have fun making videos about travel. Now called “Two Human People”.

2020

• After 10 years, stepped down as organizer of Triangle Cocoa Meetup
• May: Started learning Japanese 🇯🇵

2019

• November: Visited Kyiv, Ukraine and started learning Ukrainian 🇺🇦
• Relaunched One Charge Trips as a YouTube channel
• Built a new web portfolio for aravind.media.
• Worked on production and post-production on Aravind Ragupathi’s short film, “8:46”.
• Joined Grubhub as an iOS Team Lead.

2017

• Started One Charge Trips making trips from our home to nearby areas on a single charge of our electric vehicles.
• Speaker at two local meetups—a “meetup crossover”—CocoaHeads and TriDroid talking about Cross Platform development.
• Joined Highrise as Lead Mobile Developer.
• Relaunched CocoaHeads.TV.

2016

• Shipped open source theme, “internet weblog” for the Hugo static generator.

2015

• Joined BA3 as Senior Software Developer.
• Speaker at 360|iDev about being a manager.
• Attended WWDC 2015
• Started learnisng German 🇩🇪
• Two Toasters acquired by Ticketmaster; continued leading the new Ticketmaster Mobile Studio development team.

2014

• Started leading the iOS (and later Android) team at Two Toasters as Director of Development.
• Speaker at 360|iDev Min about using HealthKit.
• Speaker at CocoaConf Mini in Raleigh about Working with Web Services

2013

• Attended 360|iDev
• Speaker at iOSDevCampDC about AVFoundation

2012

• Switched to the Dvorak Keyboard Layout quickly and began tracking speed.
• Speaker at CocoaConf Raleigh about Automated Acceptance Testing
• Launched CocoaHeads.TV to share CocoaHeads meetup videos from groups around the world.
• Shipped iOS App for the Bad Movie Podcast.

2011

• Speaker at CocoaConf Raleigh about Core Data Concurrency
• Joined Two Toasters as Senior iOS Developer.
• Attended WWDC 2011

2010

• Started CocoaHeads Raleigh after attending NSConference Atlanta. Later renamed to “Triangle Cocoa”.
• Speaker at Autodesk University in Las Vegas about AutoCAD for Mac.
• Attended NSConference Atlanta

2009

• iOS App Icon featured in in-store Christmas display.

2008

• Shipped iAdvent for iPhone.
• Shipped RealPass for iPhone.
• Joined Captive-Aire Systems as a Sr. Software Engineer building an automated drawing web service using RealDWG in C#; front-end web development in ASP.NET; designed and built iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps in Objective-C.

2007

• Registered jnjosh.com
• Started Guest Blogger with my wife, a website meant to connect bloggers with people interested in writing guest posts.

2006

• Started Cinekids TV—a movie review web series—with my kids.
• Directed a short film “How to Be a Girl” and was selected to play at Carrboro Film Festival.

2005

• Directed live TV show “Hardcore Live” on Raleigh Public Access featuring the best of the local music scene.
• Comtrex acquired by Avatach Solutions, continue building custom automation for AutoCAD using C#, VB/VBA, C++/ObjectARX.

2000

• Rejoined Comtrex as a Software Developer building AutoCAD automation (in C++, AutoLISP, J++, and .NET) and web-based sales tools (in PHP).

1999

• Joined McGee Corp as a Junior Programmer building automated drawing applications for AutoCAD.

1998

• Joined Comtrex as an Applications Engineer providing support and building custom AutoCAD applications in AutoLISP, VB, and C++ with ObjectARX.