I'm Justin Tallant, a Senior Staff Engineer

I’m a senior-level software engineer focused on application architecture and building systems that scale without unnecessary complexity. Most of my work centers on code organization, module boundaries, and keeping large codebases maintainable over time.

I favor modular monoliths over microservices. I'm skeptical of distributed systems when a well-structured application will do. Infrastructure should be boring. The interesting problems are at the application layer: domain modeling, data flow, and designing systems that other engineers can understand and extend.

Justin Tallant Justin Tallant

Projects

Euchre Club

Online multiplayer euchre with real-time play, tournaments, replays, and leaderboards.

  • AI opponents use Monte Carlo simulation, running 500 games per decision to evaluate trump selection
  • Real-time play runs on a custom Rust WebSocket server
  • No framework, no production dependencies. Near zero maintenance cost at rest
  • Available on the Google Play Store as a PWA, so updates ship without touching the app store
  • Built with PHP, Terraform, and about 29K lines of code

AI Cook Index

An economic monitoring tool that tracks whether AI-driven labor displacement is triggering a demand crisis. Calculates a composite score from seven indicators using free FRED and BLS APIs.

jtallant.github.io/cookindex

The Huckleberry

An off-grid cabin in Terlingua, Texas. Solar-powered, spring-fed, with a wood-fired hot tub and private pickleball court.

Cabin Exterior Cabin Interior Firepit Pickleball Court

Skimpy CMS

The open source CMS that powers this site. Write blog posts in markdown without generating static files. Built on Laravel and Twig.