About Josh Beard
This is my personal website. It is part notebook, part archive, part place to put things I like keeping around on the web.
I live in Colorado with my family, and spend my time on computers, music, cycling, exploring, grilling, and the usual collection of small projects.
Some of the more personal or nostalgic corners are here because I enjoy that older style of web publishing.
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If you are looking at this and dig personal websites and that sort of thing, say hello!
Computers
I’ve been a computer hobbyist since I was young, starting with obsolete family computers, hand-me-down hardware, and parts gathered from wherever I could find them.
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I took an interest in Linux and Free and Open Source Software around 1999 and became particularly interested in setting up and administering servers and websites. I stayed up until dawn many nights learning and experimenting with this stuff and hanging out on IRC.
Around 2004, I started using FreeBSD to experience another UNIX-derived system and ran it for several years on my desktop and home servers, eventually using it for core services at a previous job. Although I don’t use it as much these days, I still love it and have a lot of respect for it and its community.
I owe my career to Free and Open Source Software and the ecosystem built around Linux and UNIX.
See the My Old Computers page for the longer archive.
At home, I maintain a homelab on Proxmox that’s mostly managed with Terraform and Ansible, and I continue to write small tools and experiments in Go.
Music
Music has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I dreamed of being a musician, but pragmatism set in and I ended up pursuing IT. I have several guitars, some little electronic gadgets, and an electronic drum set that I play with.
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I listen to a pretty diverse range of music, but rock and electronic are the dominant broad genres. I don’t have a single favorite band - it depends on the mood. Some consistent favorites are Pink Floyd, Type O Negative, Tool, Puscifer, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and… I hate to try to enumerate them all. For electronic music, my favorite is probably Kruder & Dorfmeister. I also like Orbital, Prodigy, Lords Of Acid, LTJ Bukem, and many others. I love atmospheric drum and bass/jungle. When it comes to country, I particularly like Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, George Jones, and generally classic country. I also like a lot of 80’s and 90’s country.
Check out my last.fm profile for my music stats (with lots of gaps) dating back to 2005.
Work
For work, I focus on many aspects of software delivery: platforms, developer workflows, documentation, process, governance, and the tools that help software teams build and operate things with less friction. Increasingly, that includes AI workflows, integrations, and enablement. My background is in systems administration and engineering, and I have spent a lot of time close to Linux, Unix-like systems, automation, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, and the day-to-day realities of keeping services maintainable.
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Most of my work happens in a code editor and shell, bouncing between systems, software, and process. Increasingly, that also means working alongside AI agents and LLMs to explore code, automate routine changes, and think through problems. The surrounding toolkit still includes a lot of Terraform, AWS, Go, GitLab CI, Python, Docker, shell, and whatever glue is needed at the time.
I care about practical engineering: simple systems, boring technology where it fits, clear workflows, and tools that make the right thing easier to do. The perspectives described in Radical Simplicity and Choose Boring Technology resonate with me.
See my resume for more details about my professional experience, or my now page for a current snapshot of what I’m up to.
In Memory
🐓 A rooster in memory of my mom.