While studying chemical engineering at Cooper Union, Goode earned his living playing the clarinet and saxophone in New York jazz bands.
From 1946 to 1949 Goode worked for the U.S. Navy in Sands Point, Long Island, where he became head of the Special Projects Branch.
Had he lived, Goode undoubtedly would have become the first president of AFIPS, for he was the prime mover in organizing the three American constituent societies that were members of NJCC into one federation.
[3] Harry Goode worked on the research frontiers of Management Science, Operations Research and Systems engineering in connection with organisms as systems, the reactions of groups, models of human preference, the experimental exploration of human observation, detection, and decision making, and the analysis and synthesis of speech.
[4] The IEEE Computer Society yearly awards a Harry H. Goode Memorial Award for achievements in the information processing field which are considered either a single contribution of theory, design, or technique of outstanding significance, or the accumulation of important contributions on theory or practice over an extended time period, the total of which represent an outstanding contribution.