nursebuilds.com
Johnathan Carr · LVN · Nurse since 2012 · RN in progress

From the bedside
to the build.

Fourteen years of nursing — hospice, home health, memory care, school nursing, Hollywood sets — and now a back-end-trained builder shipping AI-powered software. I find the bottleneck. Then I fix it.

2012
licensed nurse ever since — Feb 22, 2012
2024
LVN of the Year — Kaiser Home Health, SoCal · NorCal · Hawaii
11
software projects in active, AI-assisted development
The story
"At seventeen I survived a pituitary tumor — on the same floor as kids with cancer who weren't as fortunate. Gratitude became permanent."

That hospital floor is where this whole life started. I've been a nurse since February 22, 2012 — hospice for five-plus years, tele/med-surg, sub-acute, SNF, assisted living, an Alzheimer's memory-care unit, private trach care, school nursing from elementary through high school, and today, Kaiser Permanente Home Health, where I was honored as LVN of the Year 2024 across Southern California, Northern California and Hawaii. From 2016 to 2022 I also worked as an IATSE set medic on Hollywood films and productions — Christopher Nolan's Tenet, The Tragedy of Macbeth with Denzel Washington, Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon, The Prom with Meryl Streep, Kidding with Jim Carrey, and America's Got Talent — with credits on IMDb.

Before nursing I lived other lives: executive team at a multimillion-dollar real-estate investment company, founder of my own companies. Every one of them taught me to see systems — where work jams up, where hours get eaten that belong to people.

So I went to back-end programming school and started fixing what I kept noticing. Now I build daily with AI: an autonomous agent command center, NCLEX study tools, coaching apps, trading dashboards, automations. Software is where a vision becomes something real you can hand to another person — and the room to create never runs out.

I'm an avid follower of Jesus Christ. Faith, gratitude, and service are the through-line in all of it. Next year: the RN license joins the toolbox (ICHS nursing program).

The long ride

How a surfer became a nurse became a builder

1997

ESA East Coast All-Star surf team

Competitive surfer from 14 to 19 — sponsored by Oakley, Reef, Katin, and Wave Riding Vehicles. Winters in Hawaii; surfed Pipeline.

~2000s

Business years

Executive team, multimillion-dollar real-estate investment company; founded and ran my own companies. Trained six years of Muay Thai under Colin Oyama at Team Oyama in Irvine — and with ‘Razor’ Rob McCullough — along the way.

2012

Licensed nurse — Feb 22, 2012

Hospice, tele/med-surg, sub-acute, SNF, assisted living, memory care, private trach nursing, school nursing (elementary → high school), IATSE set medic.

2024

LVN of the Year — Kaiser Home Health

Across Southern California, Northern California and Hawaii. Former NASM-certified personal trainer.

Now

Builder — and RN next year

Back-end bootcamp graduate shipping AI-assisted software daily, while finishing the ICHS RN program.

Credentials, taped to the fridge
Recognition
LVN of the Year 2024 — Kaiser Home Health, SoCal · NorCal · Hawaii
Bedside range
Hospice · home health · med-surg · sub-acute · SNF · memory care · trach care · school nursing
On set
IATSE set medic — Hollywood films & productions
Training
Back-end programming bootcamp · former NASM-certified trainer
Next
RN candidate — ICHS nursing program
Table of contents

The builds

Ranked by what has my attention right now. Case studies coming as each one matures.

Fresh ink

The blog

Field notes from the nurse-who-codes lane. Never any patient information.

Off duty
🌊 Surf trips — Costa Rica · Nicaragua · Mexico · Hawaii 🏂 Snowboarding Mammoth 🥋 BJJ blue belt — Roger Machado, Pasadena 🥊 Muay Thai — Team Oyama 💃 Dancing 🧘 Yoga 🎮 Fortnite · ARC Raiders

Still chasing swell whenever the schedule allows.

Strength training’s been a throughline since my father, a bodybuilder, drilled its value into me — I chased it onto the NPC Men’s Physique finalist stage in 2016.

Let's build something

Health-tech ideas, workflows worth fixing, or nursing-school-and-code talk — inbox is open.

Email me