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42nd Design
42nd Design is one person

John Williams

Software engineer, pilot, and one-person studio in the Pacific Northwest.

Building
~20 years
Flying
Since 2013
Aircraft
1979 Mooney M20K
Based
Pacific Northwest

Thirteen of my twenty years in software have been at the same company — long enough to watch it grow through every phase, and to spend most of them close to the infrastructure: how systems scale, how they fail, and how much you can see while it happens. These days I lead an engineering team.

I've been flying since 2013. I learned in a Cessna 152, bought a 1967 Mooney M20F at around a hundred hours, and now fly a 1979 M20K — mostly around the Pacific Northwest, where the weather is genuinely interesting and the terrain is unforgiving about it.

That combination is most of the explanation for what's here. Aviation software on Android is thin: ForeFlight is iOS-only, and the alternatives cost more and trail their iOS versions. I'm not building a replacement — I fly with ForeFlight and intend to keep doing that. I'm building the small, fast tools for the moments in between, on the phone that's already in my pocket.

Forkless comes from the other half of my life: a busy household, two kids, and a strong preference for not solving dinner by eating out.

Being one person is a constraint, and it shows up in the work as a short list of products rather than a long one. That is the trade I want.

contact@42nddesign.com