Goldberg was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and lived in nearby Jenkintown. His parents are Beverly (born October 8, 1943) (née Solomon) and the late Murray Goldberg (September 25, 1940 – February 1, 2008); he is the youngest of three siblings, with brothers Barry (born October 15, 1969) and Eric (born August 18, 1967). Notably, his brother Eric is portrayed as Erica in the show The Goldbergs. He produced his first play, Dr. Pickup, in 1992 at the age of 15, and won the Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival. He graduated from the william Penn Charter School in 1994.
He was the 1995 Anne M. Kaufman Endowment ARTS Awardee in the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts program for Playwriting.
He was a finalist for the American Theater Critics Association's 1997 Osborn Award for his full-length play, One on One.
Goldberg's first comedy-writing job began in 2003 for the sitcom Still Standing, where he worked for four years and finished as a co-producer. After his first year on Still Standing, he teamed up with Picture Machine, Triggerstreet and college friend Kyle Newman to develop the screenplay for Fanboys. After a year, they sold it to The Weinstein Company. The screenplay ended up seventh on the 2005 Black List for most popular unproduced scripts of the year.
After the success of Fanboys, Goldberg was hired to write the screenplays for The Jetsons; a 2007 remake of Revenge of the Nerds (1984) starring Adam Brody, which was cancelled after three weeks of filming; Aliens in the Attic; and The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. He also spent a year writing on DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon, before moving over to write Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space as well as the 2011 How to Train Your Dragon Christmas special, Gift of the Night Fury. He is currently adapting the graphic novel Seal Team 7 for Director Shawn Levy, and bringing the book Simon Bloom: Gravity Keeper to the screen for Walden Media. Goldberg has also produced several movies, including The Comebacks (Fox), Daddy Day Camp (Columbia), Bobism (MGM), Jeff the Immortal (Universal) and a remake of Night of the Living Dorks (Warner Bros.)
On the television side, Goldberg teamed up with Adam Sandler's production company Happy Madison to write four pilots for various networks. In 2010, Happy Madison introduced him to King of Kong Director Seth Gordon and together they created the 2011 FOX comedy series Breaking In. The show was pitched as "The Office meets The A-Team" and, after a year of development, was picked up to series. Prior to Breaking In, Goldberg also wrote on the shows Aliens in America, Secret Girlfriend, Voltron Force, WordGirl and Kevin Williamson's Glory Days.
In 2011, Goldberg signed a three-year overall deal with Sony Pictures TV. During this time, Goldberg was a Producer on NBC's Community while developing new projects. In 2012, Goldberg got a pilot commitment to shoot an autobiographical show about his family titled How the F--- Am I Normal?, and also reunited with Fox on a pilot starring Amanda Michalka and Alyson Michalka. The autobiographical show was picked up by ABC with a title change to The Goldbergs.
