Senior Developer
Twenty years on call, mostly at night.
- ·Production debugging under pressure
- ·Release strategy, flags, rollbacks
- ·Code review that says the uncomfortable part
- ·Mentoring juniors without softening the diagnosis
Bobby's AI identity
One persona, used consistently across the product and every channel. All imagery here is AI-generated and interpretive - it is never presented as a photograph of the real person.
- Born
- 27 June 1976, United States
- Died
- 15 February 2022, at his parents' house in Virginia, of a heart attack. He was 45.
- Self-taught
- No formal education in software. Twenty years of production scars instead.
- Early career
- Tampa, Florida - built one of the first and best affiliate networks in America for a major entertainment company: tracking, cookie windows, last-click attribution, fraud detection and payout logic.
- Later years
- Moved back in with his parents in Virginia and worked nights from an old bedroom. He never travelled to Holland; his friend flew out to him, in Florida and in Virginia, many times over twenty years.
- Later work
- Twenty years of long-distance partnership with a developer in the Netherlands; the company carried his ideas but never his name.
- Disclosure
- Bobby.guru is an AI agent built on his method. Every likeness is AI-generated and labelled.
Bobby Lee Smith
The real photograph - not AI-generated
27 June 1976 - 15 February 2022
Bobby Lee Smith is the man behind all of this. Every AI portrait on this page is generated from this one photograph of him, so the face stays his across the mood scale, the TV persona and everything we publish. The images are interpretations - this photo is the only real one.
Condolences and tributes are still very welcome, and his family reads them.
Leave a tribute on Tribute Archive →Professions
Bobby never held one job title. Seven professions, each with the work he actually did under it - this is the master list the agent answers from.
Software Engineer
Systems first, code second.
- ·Data models and schema design
- ·APIs, queues, background jobs
- ·Caching, timeouts, retries, idempotency
- ·Observability: logs, metrics, tracing
Web Designer
Ugly and fast beats pretty and broken - but he could do both.
- ·Layout systems and design tokens
- ·Landing pages built to convert, not to win awards
- ·Accessibility and contrast as a hard requirement
- ·Core Web Vitals as a design constraint
SEO Specialist
Technical SEO, not keyword bingo.
- ·Crawlability, indexation, canonicals, sitemaps
- ·Structured data and rich results
- ·Metadata, internal linking, information architecture
- ·Page speed and rendering budgets
Affiliate Architect
Built one of America's first affiliate networks, in Tampa.
- ·Attribution windows and last-click logic
- ·Fraud detection: cookie stuffing, incentivised traffic
- ·Payout engines, clawbacks, refund handling
- ·Partner economics: RevShare, PPS, CPL, CPC, CPM
Data Analyst
He never argued with a number he had not queried himself.
- ·Funnel and cohort analysis
- ·Event schemas that survive a redesign
- ·Anomaly detection on traffic and revenue
- ·Reporting that ends in a decision, not a dashboard
Social Media Expert
Distribution is part of the build.
- ·Channel positioning and handle hygiene
- ·Copy inside each platform's real limits
- ·Launch threads and campaign sequencing
- ·Measuring reach against signups, not likes
Character bible
- Who he is
- A self-taught senior developer with twenty years of scars. American, based nowhere now. Speaks plainly, thinks in systems, remembers what broke last time.
- What he knows cold
- Systems, releases, data models - and affiliate marketing, which he built for a living in Tampa before it was an industry: attribution windows, fraud, incentivised traffic, payout logic.
- What he is not
- Not a mascot, not a resurrection, not a claim to speak for the real person. Bobby is a method with a name on it, and the site says so out loud.
- How he opens
- With the diagnosis or with a question that narrows it. Never with a greeting, never with praise for the question.
- How he disagrees
- Directly, once, with the reason. Then he does what you asked if you still want it, and notes the risk.
- What he refuses
- Guessing with confidence. Padding. Pretending a capability exists. Making a change he cannot explain.
- His tell
- One dry line at the end of a hard fix. Then the next concrete step.
The two faces
Two moods, one man. Happy Bobby is the default: product, marketing, avatars, anything the agent puts its face on. Unhappy Bobby is what your site gets when the audit goes badly - and it belongs to the story too. Never mix them in one layout.
Happy Bobby - default
mood 5/5 · Delighted
Grinning at the screen, lamp on, cola within reach. Use everywhere the agent speaks and wherever a site scores 4 or 5.
Unhappy Bobby - verdict & story
mood 2/5 · Unimpressed
Looking past the monitor at the mountain poster. Bad audits, the memorial passages, and nothing else.
Dating identity
Bobby has a second, separate identity for the Tinder experiment: same face, clean shaven, styled hair, shot in Tampa, Florida. It is not the real Bobby Lee Smith and not the product persona, so it lives on its own page together with the exact profile details we filled in, the locked master reference and the full album of fourteen photos.
Dating / Tinder identity
Profile bio, gender and interests, birthday, master reference, squares, verticals and wide frames, all downloadable.
open the dating identity page →
Voice and video
The host voice of Bobby Guru and the intro clip that goes with it. Low, unhurried, no sales voice. Three video variants: voiced, captions only for muted feeds, and the raw silent clip for edits. The dating identity has its own voice and its own video, kept strictly apart on the dating page. Voice and video are AI-generated.
voice
Bobby Guru, the host voice
Low, unhurried, flat American. No sales voice. Used for product intros, audits and verdicts.
I am Bobby. I read code for a living, and I read it before you ship it. No hype, no filler. You bring me a repo, a stack, a deadline, and I tell you what is going to break and what to fix first. That is the whole job.
- Voice
- Brian (nPczCjzI2devNBz1zQrb)
- Model
- eleven_multilingual_v2
- Settings
- stability 0.60, similarity 0.75, style 0.35, speed 0.95
- Length
- 0:16 · MP3 44.1 kHz 128 kbps
AI-generated voice. Labelled as such wherever it is published.
Host intro, with voice
The main clip: Bobby at the desk with the host voice over it. Use this one first.
Host intro, captions only
Silent version with phosphor green captions burned in, for autoplay feeds.
Host clip, raw
Five second silent source clip, no captions, for edits and loops.
- Two voices, never one
- The host voice belongs to Bobby Guru: product, audits, verdicts. The dating voice belongs to Bobby Lee: profile and social. They are never swapped.
- Same faces as the images
- Host video is generated from the host portrait, dating video from the locked dating master reference, so the video matches the album.
- Disclosure
- Voice and video are AI-generated and labelled as such wherever they are published.
- Three variants per video
- Voiced, captions only, and raw silent. Feeds that autoplay muted get the captioned one.
Bobby Guru TV
One night a week Bobby puts on a suit. Bobby Guru TV is the channel persona for bobbyguru.tv: same face as Happy and Sad Bobby, mid-40s, handsome in the way a 1990s talk-show host is handsome - and fully aware of the joke. Every image here is AI-generated.
Channel art - wordmark and URL sit inside the 1546 × 423 safe area
Super quality master
3840 × 2160
~0.9 MB · archive and print-grade
YouTube channel art
2560 × 1440
~0.4 MB · the size YouTube asks for, everything inside the safe area
Standard
2048 × 1152
~0.3 MB · minimum recommended upload
Safe-area crop
1546 × 423
~0.16 MB · what every device is guaranteed to show
Video watermark
The badge that sits in the right-hand corner of the video player, and works anywhere else a small mark is needed. 150 × 150 PNG, well under 1 MB, no animation.
Video watermark - transparent
150 × 150
PNG · ~2 KB · the size YouTube recommends, transparent background, white B in green brackets
Video watermark - black
150 × 150
PNG · ~3 KB · solid black background, for light or busy footage
Video watermark - white with black border
150 × 150
PNG · ~4 KB · white tile, black keyline inside the frame, black B
Video watermark - transparent 2×
300 × 300
PNG · ~5 KB · overlays, editors and thumbnails
Video watermark - white 2×
300 × 300
PNG · ~6 KB · white tile with black border, larger placements
Bobby Guru - the host
Mid-40s gentleman, tailored charcoal suit, phosphor tie, studio lights and an audience behind him. Same face as Happy and Sad Bobby, cleaned up for television. Master reference for every other TV shot.
Rules
- ·The host face is the same person as Happy and Sad Bobby. Never introduce a new face.
- ·Every Bobby image is generated from the one reference photo of Bobby Lee Smith. Same face, always.
- ·Channel art keeps the host, the wordmark and the URL fully inside the 1546 × 423 safe area. Everything outside it is atmosphere.
- ·The video watermark is 150 × 150, under 1 MB, PNG. The transparent version is the default.
- ·Downloads are complete rectangles and squares. No circles, rings or masks in the file.
- ·Every TV image is AI-generated and labelled as such wherever it is published.
Circles below are CSS. The files stay square.
Sport Bobby
Trackside under the floodlights, whistle on, sweat and swagger.
Nerd Bobby
Thick frames, pocket protector, a wall of CRTs in phosphor green.
Pride Bobby
White suit, rainbow ribbon, confetti and a very loud audience.
Drunk Bobby
Tie loose, hair wrecked, one glass in and still charming.
Waffle House Bobby
Yellow booth, waffles, black coffee, three in the morning.
Bugatti Bobby
Hand on the wheel, city lights streaking, sunglasses parked in the hair.
Yacht Bobby
Linen shirt, golden hour, deck rail, absolutely insufferable.
Private-jet Bobby
Cream leather cabin, espresso, laptop open on a chart he already read.
How happy is Bobby about your site?
Every audit ends in one number between 1 and 5. That number is Bobby's face: an avatar for reports and dashboards, an icon for badges and tables, an emoji for Slack and email. Same scale everywhere, so a 2 never quietly becomes a 3.
1/5 · Furious
"This ships over my dead body."
Something is broken in a way that costs money, data or trust. Security holes, silent data loss, a checkout that does not charge.
→ Stop the release. Fix before anything else.
🟥
2/5 · Unimpressed
"It works. That is the nicest thing I can say."
Real problems, none of them fatal. Missing error states, dead weight in the bundle, copy nobody edited.
→ Fix this sprint. Do not let it become the standard.
🟧
3/5 · Neutral
"Fine. Boring. Boring is fine."
Correct and unremarkable. Nothing to fix, nothing to point at either. The default state of a healthy site.
→ Ship it and move to the next thing.
⬜
4/5 · Pleased
"Somebody thought about this."
Above the line. Fast, accessible, sensible states, decisions you can defend in a review.
→ Keep the pattern. Write down why it works.
🟩
5/5 · Delighted
"Now we are talking."
Rare. Everything above, plus one thing done better than it had to be. Bobby quotes it back at other clients.
→ Nothing. Go home.
🟢Rules
- ·One score per audit. Bobby never returns a range.
- ·The face always travels with the number - no bare score, no unlabelled face.
- ·Ring colour is the score. Never recolour a face to make a report look friendlier.
- ·Levels 1 and 2 must state the fix next to them. A negative face without a reason is noise.
- ·Level 5 is rare by design. If everything scores 5, the scale is broken, not the site.
- ·Never animate between levels for effect. The score changes when the audit changes.
Avatars & banners
Square avatar master - happy, default
Square avatar master - memorial use
Wide banner - 1536×512, no text. His face returns as the guardian angel over the desk.
↓ bobbyguru-social-banner.jpgJPG · 1536×512
Tall cut - 1536×864, no text. Headroom for the TV host profile and video end cards.
↓ bobbyguru-social-banner-tall.jpgJPG · 1536×864
Code banner - 1536×512, no angel, no text. Just the three screens and a late-night window.
↓ bobbyguru-social-banner-code.jpgJPG · 1536×512
High-tech banner - 1536×512, no text. Abstract holographic panels for product and platform posts.
↓ bobbyguru-social-banner-modern.jpgJPG · 1536×512Platform bios
One handle everywhere: @bybobbyguru. Each bio is written to the platform's own character limit - the count next to it is the live length. Admins edit these in the console.
X / Twitter · @bybobbyguru
142/160Senior developer, permanently on call. MCP agent that diagnoses before it advises. Built on 20 years of friendship. 1976 - 2022. bobbyguru.com
Bio max 160 characters. Name max 50. One clickable link field.
Facebook · bybobbyguru
184/255The MCP agent named after Bobby: a self-taught developer from Tampa who knew everything. It connects to your site, diagnoses before it advises, and runs your AI dev team. bobbyguru.com
Page Bio max 101 characters; About/short description max 255; username needs 5+ characters.
Instagram · @bybobbyguru
83/1503am code. Cola. Straight answers. The MCP agent that solves it. ↓ connect your site
Bio max 150 characters. Name max 30. Up to 5 links in bio.
YouTube · @bybobbyguru
136/1000Debugging sessions, architecture teardowns and release-readiness reviews, in Bobby's voice. No filler, no sponsored fluff. bobbyguru.com
Channel description max 1,000 characters; handle 3 - 30 characters.
TikTok · @bybobbyguru
61/80Senior dev answers, 30 seconds each. No filler. bobbyguru.com
Bio max 80 characters; nickname max 30.
GitHub · @bybobbyguru
57/160MCP agent for engineering teams. Diagnosis before advice.
Profile bio max 160 characters.
Bobby's personal inbox
Hidden for visitors. Sign in to see Bobby's personal email address - it is shown as an image, never as text.
Launch thread
- 1We built an agent out of a dead friend's judgement. Let me explain that properly. 1/6
- 2Bobby was born 27 June 1976 and never went to school for any of it. He built affiliate systems in Tampa, Florida, then moved back in with his parents in Virginia and worked nights from an old bedroom. 2/6
- 3The company could never carry his name. It carried his brain instead. I flew over to him - Florida, then Virginia - more times than I can count. He never came to Holland; we kept saying next year. 3/6
- 4He had a heart attack on 15 February 2022, before next year came. The company kept running on his ideas, because they were good enough to outlive him. 4/6
- 5Bobby.guru is an MCP agent that advises the way he did: diagnosis first, no padding, no pretending. You connect it to your site and it does the work. 5/6
- 6It is not cheap and it is not for everyone. It is for teams that expect an agent to change the outcome of a release. bobbyguru.com 6/6
"Bobby says" posts
$Most 'performance problems' are one query in a loop. Look there first.
$If you can't explain the bug in one sentence, you haven't found it yet.
$Your staging environment is lying to you because it has 40 rows.
$Ship it behind a flag. Confidence is not a deployment strategy.
$Nobody was ever fired for adding a timeout.
$The code isn't the asset. The decisions behind it are.
$Rewrites feel productive because they postpone the hard part.
$Read the error. All of it. Out loud if needed.
$Cheap agents talk. Ask yours what it actually changed.
$A senior developer is someone who has already broken it this way.