Tootsie's Film Festival
Posted June 3, 2026
Film festival time! We're handing out the first-ever VINYL TV Development Awards — THREE of them — to some incredibly deserving filmmakers. See you at Tootsie's Video Vault!
Howdy! I'm Bret.
I'm a cofounder of VINYL.tv, a garage startup streaming service. Prior to that I was a software developer for many years, working at Rackspace, and Google Cloud where I focused on serverless cloud tech like Cloud Functions and Firebase. I love to travel and have been to 80+ countries 🌍. I've also been an avid runner, completing 19 half marathons and 5 full marathons.
About Bret →What I've been up to
24 Hours of Beta — Thanks, NYC!
Posted May 25, 2026
Huge thanks to everyone who tuned in and helped us stress-test the platform during our first 24-hour run — Vinyl TV's free, always-on linear channel officially survived its beta baptism. More beta days ahead, stay tuned!
This City TV is now VINYL TV
Posted May 18, 2026
New name, now with free hipster cred whether or not you own a record player.
This City TV (2026)
Posted April 10, 2026
I've been building This City TV — a curated streaming platform for New York City's best indie theater, film, and live performances. From standing up the business foundations to architecting a React Native app tuned for streaming, the goal is a digital stage that truly feels like NYC.
Bringing serverless to Kubernetes and Knative (2018)
Posted March 22, 2024
Combine the power of Kubernetes with the ease of use of serverless to create new, powerful and flexible development experiences. Watch on YouTube.
Something I'm passionate about
Posted May 12, 2026
Domestic violence prevention is one of the causes I'm an advocate for. It comes in many forms and impacts people of all gender identities and sexual orientations.
Unfortunately, many of the causes we're most passionate about are also the ones that have affected our lives personally, including mine.
As a society, we have a very clear picture of what it looks like for women to experience abuse because it's a tragedy that has hurt many people. Unfortunately, we have a lot less sense of what abusive and controlling relationships look like when men are the victims, even though they can be equally harmful. I know I had no idea.
If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline offers free, confidential support and resources 24/7.
Build a bot for Google Assistant using Google Cloud (2017)
Posted Aug 9, 2023
Come learn how to build a custom Action and see how the same tools can help you build a serverless chatbot for Slack and more using Google Cloud Platform. Watch on YouTube.
2015 flashback: climbing to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro
February 23, 2023
In 2015 I went to Tanzania to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. At 19,341 ft (5,895m) tall it's the highest freestanding mountain in the world! Read more about my visits to Africa.
Vintage videos: Cloudability and cost monitoring (2013)
Posted Dec 28, 2022
Cloudability was a service that let you monitor and analyze your cloud spend across clouds and vendors. This is a vintage video from 2013 which means it's hopelessly out of date.
Serverless deep dive with Google Cloud (2018)
Posted Nov 15, 2022
Functions, apps, and containers oh my! Serverless on Google Cloud covers a lot: compute, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, App Engine, containers, Kubernetes, and Firebase.
Running!
Posted Sept 22, 2022
From London to Tokyo to Sydney and much more, I used to love going on runs when traveling. Check those out on my running page.
Online Payments with Stripe and Ruby on Rails
Posted Aug 1, 2022
Vintage video (2013): Racker developer Bret McGowen guides you on how to set up Stripe in your Ruby on Rails web application so that you can easily accept online payments.
React.js developer
Posted May 25, 2026
Bret is a New York City coder and software engineer who builds with React, Next.js, C# and more. He's the founding engineer at VINYL TV, a NYC-focused streaming service, where he built the entire version 1 of the web app — component architecture, streaming UI, and the linear-channel viewing experience. He cares about interfaces that feel as deliberate as the product behind them, and he's just as comfortable shipping a polished React app as he is designing the system it runs on. Off the clock, he builds his own small tools, like FileSweep, a macOS app with a swipe-to-sort mechanic that keeps finding its way into everything he makes.
Professional bio
Posted May 4, 2026
Bret is a software engineer and founder building VINYL TV, a New York City–focused streaming service where every day he moves between computer programming and television programming. Along with the McGowen.io ragtag dev crew he ships production software, and on the side he designs and builds his own products, including Sifter, a personal productivity iOS app. He pairs deep technical execution with genuine product range — web, mobile, and media — and a habit of seeing ideas all the way from naming exercise to shipped feature.
More about me
Prior to Google, I worked in the cloud industry at Rackspace as a software engineer. Before that, I led engineering teams at an e-commerce company, a government laboratory, non-profits and tried my hand at creating two startups. I earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from Texas A&M University.