From self-taught developer to AI-assisted engineer.
I'm Samuel Bostock, a self-taught software engineer from Australia. I spent more than ten years building, shipping and supporting commercial software, and today I contribute security and correctness fixes to Open Mercato using coding agents and the quality gates I've built around them.
My programming journey began in 2015 when I started learning AutoHotkey. What began as a personal challenge quickly evolved into a business, and in 2016 I released my first commercial software product.
Over the following years, I developed a total of 12 commercial Windows applications, built a community of more than 14,500 members, and supported approximately 20,000 customers around the world.
Experience at a Glance
My experience combines engineering, product ownership, customer communication and the day-to-day operation of a remote business.
My Journey
Running my own business required me to take ownership of far more than development alone. I learned by building real products, solving real customer problems, and continually adapting.
Learning to Build
I began teaching myself software development through AutoHotkey, desktop automation, interface design, and practical Windows projects.
Launching Commercial Software
I released my first paid software product and began handling development, licensing, customer support, distribution, and product maintenance.
Growing the Business
Over the following years, I expanded the product range, grew the customer community, managed website and payment systems, and supported customers across a wide variety of technical environments.
Open-Source Engineering
Today I contribute to Open Mercato, an open-source AI-engineering framework for CRM/ERP and commerce: 45 merged pull requests so far, mostly security and correctness fixes, delivered through an agent pipeline I designed — spec templates, an independent quality gate, self-QA and automated review loops.
How I Work
The strongest lessons from running a business came from taking responsibility for both the product and the people using it.
Specs and Quality Gates
I treat coding agents like a team: every task starts from a clear spec, and every change passes an independent gate — linting, i18n, repo-wide guards and targeted tests — before it's published.
Clear Communication
Supporting customers has taught me to explain technical issues clearly, remain patient, and adapt my communication to different experience levels.
Continuous Improvement
I use feedback and real-world problems to improve products, workflows, documentation, and the overall customer experience.
Interested in learning more?
I'm looking for remote roles in AI-assisted software engineering, forward-deployed / solutions engineering, and product-focused development — especially on open-source, platform and business-software products.