Oren Goldberg · South Orange, NJ
Software for public-interest work and the open-source AI stack.
Director of Engineering at The Workers Lab. Public Interest Technology Fellow, Ford/Media Democracy Fund Technology Exchange.
I build production AI systems, agent and browser infrastructure, and open-protocol social tools. Most of my work today goes to nonprofits, advocacy and policy organizations, and partners running real-world programs. I also take on contract and project engagements when they fit.
Coding agents and AI-assisted development run as the core daily loop, paired with the architecture, evaluation, and production responsibility a senior engineer brings to the work. Comfortable in TypeScript, Python, and Flutter, and at home picking up the next generation of tools as the AI development stack shifts.
About
I’ve spent fifteen years building software, with detours through teaching, fundraising technology, and community organizing. I run engineering at The Workers Lab (WorkIt Labs), where I’m the in-house technology lead for partners across nonprofits, policy and advocacy organizations, and field-operations teams. Day to day I architect production document intelligence and RAG, multi-tenant AI assistants, field-operations platforms, public-data tools, and open-protocol social infrastructure.
The work that interests me most sits at the intersection of public-interest technology and open AI infrastructure: open models, open protocols, agent web tooling, and the kind of small, sharp prototypes that move a conversation forward inside a community.
Selected Work
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Chronos
An infinite zoomable timeline of everything, from the Big Bang to today. Wikidata SPARQL powers event discovery without hallucination, with a force-directed knowledge graph for tracing causes, effects, and siblings. Optional bring-your-own-key AI runs directly from the browser to Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, or local Ollama; keys and conversations never touch the server. Source: github.com/ogoldberg/Chronos.
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WorkIt AI Assistant Platform
Production multi-tenant RAG and document intelligence for partner-specific knowledge bases: OCR ingestion, semantic chunking, hybrid pgvector and keyword search, citations, streaming chat, multi-provider LLM abstraction across OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Mistral, plus evaluation and caching. Used in production by paying partners.
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Exit
An R&D platform exploring what an open social internet looks like in practice. Flutter app with protocol abstraction packages for AT Protocol/Bluesky, Matrix, Nostr, Solid, and ActivityPub. MLS/OpenMLS encrypted private messaging, a Phoenix delivery service, an Akkoma ActivityPub deployment, and Matrix homeserver infrastructure for bridges and VoIP.
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Unbrowser.ai
Web browsing infrastructure for AI agents. Learns from agent requests, discovers underlying APIs behind web pages, and builds reusable procedural skills. Cached requests return in 50–200 ms versus 2–5 s cold.
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MoveAhead.ai
An AI relocation assistant prototype: document intelligence and OCR, a personalized knowledge graph, RAG with semantic chunking and pgvector, an AI-controlled adaptive dashboard, and 90+ generative UI components.
Experience
- 2019–now Director of Engineering, The Workers Lab (WorkIt Labs). First in-house engineering hire; AI assistants, document intelligence, campaign tools, public-data systems, open-protocol R&D.
- 2016–2019 VP of Technology / Lead Engineer, Give Lively. Hands-on lead through a major pivot; the resulting platform has since processed over $1B in donations for nonprofits.
- 2014–2016 Lead Instructor & Product Manager, TurnToTech. Mentored 100+ developers with a near-100% placement rate; alumni now at Apple, Amazon, Meta, Uber, IBM, Snap, NYTimes, and elsewhere.
- 2007–2014 Earlier: Organizer at UNITE HERE Local 355 in Miami; founder of Red Cloud Creations (farm-to-wholesale software, music venue booking); web apps and installations at Sub Rosa for clients including TED and SXSWi; a CS curriculum for at-risk youth at Vincent Gray Academy.
Now
Available for contract / project engagements.
Current attention: the open-source AI stack (especially evaluation and agent web tooling), the open social protocol layer (ActivityPub, ATProto, Matrix), and the specific craft of shipping small things quickly — short prototypes other developers can fork, run, or argue with. Open to short, well-scoped builds.