JedFonner.com

My company, Appian, is hiring technologists in the DC area. Some of you may remember that 12 months ago we weren’t doing so well, but it’s amazing what a year can do. We’ve made some awesome productivity improvements since last fall, gotten some serious venture capital, attracted a whole bunch of new clients, and are now looking to grow quickly. To start, we’re searching for some skilled QA engineers and change management engineers.

So if you are serious about software development, check out this job posting on LinkedIn.

For more on Appian, check out Appian’s company profile on CrunchBase.

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Wow, if this isn’t confusing I don’t know what is – it looks like a new company called Icebrrg has launched with the intention of making web forms “chillingly simple.” Form data is saved and exposed via a graphical database viewer. It’s almost exactly like the established IceBerg which claims to focus on “custom applications” but really just let’s you connect web forms to a database, i.e. what IceBrrg does, albeit with a little more oompf.

Compare for yourself (click for larger view):

The really weird thing is that Icebrrg chose practically the same font as Iceberg for their logo. Although in their defense, almost every “web 2.0” company uses that font or a similar font. And by cutting out the second “e” and putting in a second “r”, Icebrrg really is very web 2.0.

But seriously, you would think the Icebrrg people would have done a Google search on “Iceberg” before naming their offering.

So I haven’t had a change to write a blog post in a while, mainly because I’ve been really busy at work. A lot of it is normal rushing to finish our next big product release (lovingly codenamed “Diablo”). But there’s also been an additional level of intensity around the company, and finally I can say why.

Appian (where I’ve worked for the past 6 years) just announced a $10 million boost from Novak Biddle Venture Partners. It’s the largest check Novak Biddle has cut for a single portfolio company this year. Here’s the actual press release and this is what Novak Biddle actually had to say:

“We’re heavily associated with ‘three guys in a garage’ startups,” says Jack Biddle, co-founder of the Bethesda venture firm and new Appian board member. “In this case, [Appian] is a substantial business. The potential is so large we couldn’t let it go.”

- From the Washington Business Journal article

And here’s what our CEO, Matthew Calkins, had to say about it:

Calkins expects Appian to outgrow the market, currently expanding at a rate of 25% a year, and is managing the company toward an IPO. He expects that within five years, there will be one to three independent public BPM firms on the market. Calkins said he sees significant growth opportunities in Europe.

The plan is to use the funds to expand our position in the market and to invest our very exciting and very cool Appian Anywhere software-as-a-service (SaaS) product. I worked on the early versions of Appian Anywhere and it’s great to see some real marketing muscle being put behind it.

The founders have been meeting with us regularly, and all the Tech managers (myself included) went out to lunch with the head of Marketing today to discuss what lays in store. It’s a pretty exciting time to be here.

Now, for those who scoff at $10M, I really liked the quote from Sandy Kemsley, “Remember, this is the conservative east coast, not the excesses of the Valley.” Plus, we don’t need this money to keep the lights on or pay the bills - we have actual revenue for that (unlike some other companies, ahem). This $10M is going straight into growing our business. Very cool.

Btw, we’re looking for another good Java Architect and a whole bunch of Quality Engineers. So shoot me your resume by emailing it to appian-at-jednospambotsfonner.com if you’re interested.

DISCLAIMER: This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, Appian Corporation.

I saw this on the Joel on Software blog and thought it was as amusing as it was accurate:

“Basically a small company has a flavor to it, whereas a big company is sort of like checking into the Bellagio in Las Vegas. It’s a nice hotel but it has 5,000 rooms, so don’t expect anybody to remember your name. A small company is more like a bed and breakfast. You’re going to have a great time because you get along with people and it’s a much friendlier experience. You don’t really mind that the bathroom is down the hall because the people made a special vegetarian meal for you and then showed you around town. On the other hand, you might be at a bed and breakfast where they have weird leather implements and lots of cats.”

– From A Conversation with Joel Spolsky in ACM Queue.

If you do anything in your job related to software, I encourage you to read the Joel on Software blog. It’s funny, but more than that it’s really helpful.

If you’re actually directly involved in building software, you have to read Joel’s book, which covers everything from project management to bug tracking to keeping your people happy. Grab a copy of your own, or you can borrow mine.

Last Thursday was a pretty good day at work. It was one of those days where I’m really glad I work at a small tech company. If you’ve spent your life working for big companies, you might not realize the benefits of working for a small company.

• More responsibility, faster: since there are less people, a small company usually expects employees to step up faster and take on more responsibility. This is great for people who constantly want to be challenged.
• Broaden your horizons: a small company usually has a flat organizational hierarchy and departments are willing to seek and give help when appropriate. Because of this, you get to help out with projects that might not normally have fallen within your realm of expertise
• Change is good: small companies are always looking for ways to use their small size (read: adaptability) as a benefit to counteract their lack of manpower and bottomless pits of money. So they’re naturally open to new ideas (even risky ones) and they’re more likely to shift the way things are done.

So what was so special about Thursday?

First, I had volunteered to act as the liaison between Tech and Recruiting to help brainstorm ideas for our upcoming fall college recruiting effort. That meant I got to spend time working with the heads of recruiting and other departments to come up with cool ideas for our recruiting website, career fair booth, newspaper ads, swag to give out, etc etc. I really enjoy stepping outside of my normal responsibilities and getting to do new things like this and be creative in new ways.

Second,when not working with Recruiting, I was working with my team to roll out new features to our constantly-improving on-demand SaaS site. I’m the engineering manager for the team responsible for deploying my company’s new foray into SaaS, and that’s pretty cool. We’re always thinking of new ways to improve the product and make the experience cooler for our users. On Thursday, one of our latest features really came together, and being able to really play with it online was pretty rewarding.

Lastly, my boss likes to throw out new ideas just to see what people think, and before heading home he emailed me to ask (no promises) what I thought about getting new iMacs for all of our developers to make them more productive and happier at work. A pretty crazy idea at first glance, but once I thought about it a little, I realized there were a few real positives. So I don’t know if anything like this will ever happen, but I think it’s awesome that those at a higher paygrade than me are actually thinking about things like this.

Anyway, everyone has bad days at work and a lot of the time the good days go by unnoticed. But that’s what a good work day for me is like. What’s a good work day like for you?