Joining Arcol

I’m excited to announce that I’m joining Arcol to work on the future of building design software! Arcol’s ambitions are at the intersection of a variety of my interests: innovative software for professional creative work, ambitious and challenging technical problems, and architecture.

The cross-pollination of architecture and computing fascinates me, starting with Christopher Alexander’s concept of pattern languages and the influence that it’s had on software engineering, and then in reverse with architects like Frank Gehry leveraging innovations in software to enable new architectural design. I’m looking forward to being a part of that shared history by pushing these two industries forward together at Arcol.

I’m deeply inspired by the early pioneers of computing and creative software, folks like Doug Engelbart and J.C.R. Licklider, who pushed the boundaries of how we interact with computers. More recently, things like Bret Victor’s work on experimental interfaces and Andy Matuschak’s writing about tools for thought have ignited my own interest in working on these tools.

Arcol is well-positioned to innovate in this space and to carry out the visions of some of these figures. There is so much untapped potential in software for creative work and in the ways people interact with that software, and I’m excited to tap into that potential with Arcol.

In my last role at Stripe I got to see what it takes to build a strong engineering organization, learning what it means to operate with rigor, and to effectively balance security and reliability with developer productivity. Working on an infrastructure team, I also learned a lot about the nuts and bolts of managing the cloud infrastructure required to run a massive distributed system with hundreds of services.

I plan to use that experience to help build Arcol’s engineering culture and to help Arcol’s infrastructure scale effectively and efficiently as we continue to grow.

p.s. If this sounds exciting to you too, we’re hiring! And if you want to chat about Arcol, software, or buildings, email me at james@arcol.io.