In about a month I will have been developing with Go on a professional level for one year. I started my journey learning Go around 18 months ago.

The Past Link to heading

Before I look at how I feel about go let’s do a quick recap on my past. I have always been a Backend Software Engineer who prefers to work with small to medium sized companies.

  • I began coding around 34 years ago in Basic on a Tandy 1000 running DOS and Deskmate.
  • Started building custom websites with SAW Computing in 2005 using PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
  • Shifted to node.js 0.10 in 2015 when I moved to Smart Sales and Lease to build out their call center as a Senior Software Engineer.
  • 2022 Smart Sales shut down and I moved to CallPotential and C# to build a customer service AI agent with chat and voice (phone) capabilities
  • 2024 CallPotential was acquired by Storable and I decided to stay with my team instead of following the AI project so I was back in PHP and Nest.js

The Last Year Link to heading

That brings me back to 2025. My old boss from Smart Sales and Lease reached out to me, he needed me back leading the project at his new company. It was software I had designed and developed back during the Smart Sales and Lease days. However, we needed to build a desktop application, clean up the front-end and make the API more responsive.

I was suffering from dependency hell burnout with JavaScript, I was sick of PHP, and I was not a fan of the tooling around C#. However, I had been learning Go to help counteract all of those issues. When I accepted I decided we would shift over to Go completely.

The Result Link to heading

Go has worked beautifully.

The API Link to heading

After transitioning the API from node.js with express to Go our infrastructure costs dropped by 99%. We also saw a 60% increase in performance across the board and the system is currently handling around 100 million requests per month.

The Desktop Link to heading

Our system runs on Thin Clients and has to handle video and audio capture and transmuxing. We do this while staying under 300 MB of RAM and under 10% CPU utilization while making use of GPU transcoding.

AI Link to heading

I have adopted AI in my workflow with the motto ‘AI Enhanced Not AI First’ and it has served me well.

I am shipping code at double the speed I was before. Currently AI is handling about 90% of the code generation. However, I never vibe code. Every line of code is reviewed before being accepted. I constantly step in to keep the AI on task to make sure the code architecture and logic are sound. When the AI starts making mistakes too often on sensitive pieces of code I step in and hand code it.

However, I have seen the danger. With me not coding it all by hand I have felt rustier, so I subscribed to CodeCrafters and I spend 1 hour every day working on some of their tasks by hand. This allows me to both use AI in my workflow and keep my skills in Go sharp.

Conclusion Link to heading

Go has met nearly every use case I have had. I am also starting to use HTMX and plain old JavaScript much more, leaving behind npm, react, and many of the other complex heavy frameworks and tool chains. I have always viewed simplicity as a core value in programming. Go gives me that simplicity and has helped me seek out simplicity in the other tools I use.