The Person Behind GörenLabs

I'm a 22-year-old software developer based in Haarlem, the Netherlands. I run GörenLabs, a one-person studio where I handle strategy, design, and engineering myself — no team, no layers, just direct work with the people who hire me.

The name comes from my surname. In Turkish, "Gören" means "the one who sees." That meaning stuck with me, because it describes how I approach every project: looking past the surface to find what actually matters.

How I got here

I graduated from ROC Amsterdam in 2024 and started my career as a junior software engineer at Synetic. Three months later I moved to Autodisk, where I work as a front-end developer, mainly with Vue and Nuxt. In December 2025, I started my own company, GörenLabs.

I'm partially self-taught. School gave me a foundation, but most of what I use day to day I learned by building: pick a problem, figure out how to solve it, ship it, move on to the next one. That cycle taught me something formal education often skips — taste develops through decisions, not theory.

The project that shaped me most early on was my personal website, kaangoren.nl. I handled every part of it myself, from planning and wireframes to design, content, development, and SEO. It was the first project I owned start to finish, and it set the standard for how I still work.

What drives me

I care about the details most people never notice but everyone feels: how a page loads, the rhythm between sections, the moment a hover state responds, the weight of a font at a specific size.

These aren't cosmetic concerns. They shape how people perceive quality. A product that feels considered earns trust faster than one that simply looks good in a screenshot.

I also believe in restraint. Adding more is easy; knowing when to stop is the harder skill. The best work I've done always involved removing something that seemed necessary — until it wasn't.

How I work

Every project at GörenLabs is founder-led. The person you talk to is the same person writing the code, orchestrating the AI agents that help build it, choosing the animations, and making the deployment decisions. There's no telephone game between departments.

This model works best for founders, small teams, and companies that value precision over process. If you want a direct line to the person building your product, that's what I offer.

Outside the screen

I ride a Yamaha MT-09 SP — a good way to clear my head and feel free after long hours behind a screen.

I make beats in FL Studio. It started during my first year studying software development at ROC Amsterdam, when a friend got me into music production. I'd tried FL Studio before and given up, but the second time it clicked, and it's been a creative outlet I genuinely enjoy ever since.

I also work with wood, turning raw pieces into something useful, and a few times a year I play airsoft with friends. Mountain biking is back in the rotation too, and I travel whenever I can — I shoot photos and video wherever I end up, with a Panasonic Lumix S5, and edit in DaVinci Resolve.

I'm based in Haarlem — close enough to Amsterdam to stay connected, far enough to stay focused.