A New Day
I’ve been working in the software industry professionally since 2003. I’ve worked on my own products. I’ve been a consultant. I’ve talked at meetups. I’ve done twitter support. I’ve done HR. I’ve done community moderation. I’ve built a lot of software. I’ve turned off a lot of software.
This is the next step in my software lifecycle.
What is Old Chestnut Software LLC?
In short, it is a software consultancy for me and by me, Joel Meador. I made it so I can help you and your team make great software as a team. A rising tide lifts all, in life and in software. If you don’t have a technical team, I can help your company create great software from scratch.
I have no plans to add more people to the company at the moment, but we change our minds sometimes.
Why did you make a new company?
I like writing software. I like talking about it. I have for as long as I can remember, which goes back to being 8 or 9yo and reading 3-2-1 Contact for the AppleII programs and exchanging floppy disks with at the library’s computer club. One of the greatest things about consulting is getting to hear new teams talk about their software, both the love and the frustrations. And helping them make things better.
I’ve always felt that pluralism was a better way to develop software than rigid hierarchic control. I’m looking to have that in my life again, and I hope having my own company again will facilitate that.
So, here in the middle of a Pandemic and a Climate Crisis and Depression-level unemployment and the largest Anti-Police State Protests I’ve seen since the Berlin Wall fell, I started a software company for myself. I thought previously I had found and helped make my forever company. But that was not to be. So it goes. My son still needs to eat. I want to stay in my home.
How can I engage you?
Send an email to joel@oldchestnut.work and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Past Experience
It’s just me at the moment, so this might seem like a resume, but I’ll be brief. The dates are as accurate as I can make them, but I’ve lost a lot of the specifics to internal email systems to which I do not have access.
| Year | Company | Project Description | Responsibilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001-2003 | Elastic Image | desktop computer vision to 3-d printing | developer |
| 2003-2005 | GovBenefits.gov (now benefits.gov) | validation and verification | automation testing |
| 2005 | Dept. Of Labor | legacy portal software | maintenance |
| 2005-2007 | Commscope: Systimax | hardware and software patch cable management | test consultant |
| 2007-2009 | Bank of Indianapolis | mainframe to web software | creation, maintenance |
| 2007-2009 | Security Luebke Roofing | roofing estimates portal | performance improvements, maintenance |
| 2007-2009 | National Precast Concreate Association | estimate portal | development, maintenance |
| 2007-2009 | OneConnect | business-focused social networking site | development, maintenance |
| 2010-2011 | Citizen Effect | crowd-sourced charitable project management | development, maintenance, devops |
| 2010-2011 | Major computer manufacturer | internal and external use sites for user training, scheduling, and manufacturing | creation, maintenance, devops, design |
| 2010-2011 | Doppelpager | a/b website testing for non-programmers | creation, maintenance |
| 2010-2011 | Pocket Tales | children’s literacy portal | creation, devops, design management |
| 2010-2012 | Mainstreet Capital | Project Burndown (below) enterprise installation | maintenance, devops, sales |
| 2011-2012 | Big Blue Wagon | business-focused video hosting | creation, maintenance, devops |
| 2012-2013 | Recoverator | startup weekend winner for home insurance inventory mgmt | creation |
| 2012-2013 | Zynga: Words With Friends | game platform | new game support, devops, application performance improvement |
| 2012-2013 | Codifferous | git-based team code review tool | creation, maintenance, marketing |
| 2009-2014 | Project Burndown | project management scheduling tool for small teams | creation, design, marketing, sales, devops |
| 2011-2014 | Yipes! Online | cheerleading online retail | creation, mainteance, support, devops |
| 2012-2014 | Social Imprints | branded printing with social justice focus | maintenance, devops, new feature development |
| 2012-2014 | Pirate Metrics | AARRR tool for small business | creation, maintenance, marketing |
| 2014-2015 | Salesforce: Predictive Intelligence | ebiz recommendation software | maintenance, monitoring, team training, feature development |
| 2014-2016 | Lessonly | learning platform for teams | monitoring improvements, feature development |
| 2016 | OurHealth | consumer-empowered healthcare | advisor on monitoring, team, and software choice |
| 2013-2017 | Gauges | web analytics tool focused on real-time updates | maintenance, devops |
| 2010-2020 | DocRaptor | PDF generation from HTML | creation, maintenance, devops, new feature development, technical tupport, sales |
| 2013-2020 | Instrumental | APM focused on code-based metrics | maintenance, devops, new feature development, technical tupport, sales |