Systems architect · Maryland
I find where things fit.
Then I make them work.
Then I make them work.
Built to be understood
This site is three things: a place to share what I’ve built, a wall for work that’s stuck with me, and an account of a professional life spent inside the load-bearing parts of systems most people never see.
Have a look around.
Have a look around.
What’s here
01
The Lab
Interactive tools & exhibits
Things I’ve built that you can use. Economic simulations, decision models, technical toys. Not demos — they work. Start with the McCall job search game if you want to see how economists think about turning down offers.
Click to enter the lab ›
02
The Gallery
Curated work, framed with commentary
Other people’s work that earned a place on the wall. Talks, lectures, ideas I’ve come back to more than once. Each one gets a short note: what it is, why it stuck, and what I think is really going on underneath.
Click to browse the gallery ›
03
The Record
Professional life, without the rigid form
My résumé, with some extras. What I’ve built, what I was responsible for, and how I think about systems and people. Written in the first person, because that’s the only honest way to describe work you were actually inside of.
Click to read the record ›
Who I am,
briefly.
briefly.
I’ve spent most of my professional life in the foundational parts of systems — the parts that, if they go wrong, everything goes wrong. I’m not a manager by disposition. I’m a builder who occasionally gets to decide what gets built.
Outside of work I think about boats, physics, and whether a 2-liter Pepsi bottle can serve as a bearing housing. My house is painted orange. The furniture is dark walnut. It coheres, I promise.
I built this site because I tend to accumulate things — ideas, tools, references, experiences — and it seemed better to put them somewhere than to keep them in a pile. If something here is useful to you, I’m glad. If you want to talk, find me: ross.business.carlson@gmail.com