John Darrington worked for many years in telecommuncations and in biomedical engineering. He used to build marine radio tranceivers, and remote controlled bomb disposal vehichles. He has designed and installed telecommunications systems many parts of the world. He worked briefly in the oil and gas industry, before moving to a position as Software R&D Manager for a company developing laser eye surgury equipment. Currently He is in full time postgraduate study.

He is the author and maintainer of Gnubik, the GNU project's Rubik Cube simulator. He is an active developer of PSPP. In the past, he has contributed many to Peter Miller's change supervision system, aegis, and many other Free Software projects.