Wearing two hats as a developer can be a demanding juggling act. By day, I’m a Geospatial Software Engineer with the USGS, solving complex data challenges. By night, I run a freelance full-stack development agency, building modern web applications for clients. How do I manage both without burning out? The secret isn’t just time management; it’s a powerful, synergistic stack of tools that automate, assist, and accelerate my work.

At the heart of this stack is AI. Today, I want to pull back the curtain and show you the exact AI and automation tools I use on a daily basis.

The Core AI Companion: Google's Gemini Toolset

Since the Gemini 2.5 models were released, this toolset has become my primary AI platform, serving two distinct but equally important roles.

• My Daily Assistant (The Gemini App): This is my pocket-sized partner for life logistics. I use it for quick news summaries, getting high-level analysis on market trends for my investments, and even for generating motivational snippets to start the day. For a bit of fun and continuous learning, I have it generate a random, interesting Python script for me to review each day.
• My Automated Coder (The Gemini CLI): This is where things get really powerful. For my freelance agency, I've integrated the Gemini CLI into an automated workflow. It acts as a development agent on my home server, taking on feature requests for two of my clients. With strict context rules and orchestration from N8N, it conducts the changes, runs tests, and pushes the code to GitHub for me to review and approve the PR.

The Single Source of Truth: NotebookLM

At this point, NotebookLM is my entire research hub. It has been a ridiculously valuable resource for both learning and daily work. I have notebooks set up for each primary programming language I use (Python, JavaScript, etc.), and I've sourced them with the full official documentation for each one.

Instead of having 20 browser tabs open, I now have one place I can go to ask highly specific questions about debugging, syntax, or library usage. It’s like having a conversation with the documentation itself, and it has massively accelerated my problem-solving speed.

The Automation Engine: N8N

If Gemini is the brain, N8N is the central nervous system that connects everything. This open-source automation platform covers the more detailed, agentic work that I need. My instances handle:

• Blog Automation: Automating parts of my content workflow.
• Contact Submissions: Managing and responding to inquiries from my agency's website.
• The Development Agent: This is the big one. N8N orchestrates the entire freelance coding agent I mentioned earlier. It receives the task, triggers the Gemini CLI on my server, and manages the process right up until the PR is ready for my review.

Privacy and Control: Self-Hosted OpenWebUI & Ollama

Working for a government agency means data privacy and security are non-negotiable. For any work-related LLM usage, I turn to my own self-hosted instance of OpenWebUI running at ai.raythurman.dev. This interface connects to local Ollama models running on my hardware, ensuring no sensitive data ever leaves my control.

I was building my own chat platform for a while, but once I was hired full-time, I found OpenWebUI and realized it was a more mature and feature-rich solution. It’s the perfect example of leveraging a great open-source project to solve a critical need.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Is a setup like this expensive to run? Not necessarily. The Gemini App, NotebookLM, and the free tiers of N8N are incredibly generous. The main cost is the hardware for my home server, which many developers already have or can build affordably. The most significant investment is time, not money.

2. How long did it take to create these automations? This wasn't an overnight project. I built it iteratively over several months. I started with one simple automation in N8N and gradually added more complexity. The "dev agent" for my clients was the most complex piece, but it was built on top of many smaller, successful automations. Start small!

3. Why use so many different tools instead of just one platform? I believe in using the best tool for the job. Gemini provides state-of-the-art models. NotebookLM is purpose-built for research and is unmatched in that area. N8N offers incredible flexibility for orchestrating complex workflows. OpenWebUI provides a clean, private interface for local models. Trying to force one tool to do everything often leads to compromises.

4. How do you ensure client privacy with the automated coding agent? This is a top priority. The entire workflow runs on my local server, so no proprietary client code is sent to an external API. The agent is given only the specific files and context it needs to complete a task. Sensitive data like API keys or credentials are never part of the context. The final code is always reviewed by me before a PR is merged.

5. What's the one tool you'd recommend a developer start with? Without a doubt, NotebookLM. The barrier to entry is zero, and the immediate payoff is huge. Go to the official documentation site for your favorite language, save it as a PDF, upload it to a new notebook, and start asking it questions. It will change the way you research and learn. Want an example notebook to learn about the USGS 3DHP Program?

My Final Thought: Your Job Isn't to JUST Write Code

This entire system is built around a core belief I hold about our profession.

Obviously, I'm excited about the future of AI in America with the latest announcement from the White House, you can read my thoughts on that here.

I still fully believe that AI will not replace developers, but those developers that truly embrace what AI can do for us will be drastically ahead. Our job as Software Engineers is to solve problems, not just write code.

These tools free up my time from tedious, repetitive tasks and allow me to focus on the bigger picture: architecture, creative problem-solving, and delivering real value.

What tools are you using to supercharge your workflow? Let me know your thoughts over on X @raythurman2386!