Goodman began his career as a feature writer in Japan before reporting from Southeast Asia, based in Manila and Jakarta. His first full-time newsroom job was at the Anchorage Daily News.

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At the Washington Post, he covered the technology bubble of the late-1990s, then served as Shanghai bureau chief during China's emergence as an economic superpower. As the national economic correspondent for The New York Times, he chronicled the Great Recession and the global financial crisis. During a five-year stint in London, he  covered Brexit, populism, trade, inequality and the upheavals reshaping the global economy. His reporting has taken him into conflict zones including Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Cambodia and East Timor.