What are we building?
Are you looking for an opportunity to get in the ground floor of a big, interesting, diverse, and unique software project? We’re building the next generation of software to power lean businesses. It’s got to be fast, modular and web based. It’s also got to be flexible since we may spin off the development team as a separate corporation to adapt the software to many businesses.
How are we building it?
Since we’re at the beginning of the project, everything technology is up for grabs! Databases? We’ve used Mongo, Neo4J, and a variety of relational databases—we’ll probably use all these and more (or less—you can help us decide). Languages? It’s going to be web based so you can be sure it will be JavaScript laden. Of course Angular will be there. The possibilities are almost literally infinite since we’ll probably end up crafting many of our own libraries. On the server? Node.js? A more “classic” language like C# or Java? We’ve also experimented with F# and Haskell and suspect there will be a home for a pure functional language or perhaps a hybrid like Scala.
There are a myriad of architectural and design decisions to be made so if you’re daunted by that task you’ll probably want to pass on this opportunity. But if the idea of getting on the ground floor of a large greenfield project and all that entails excites you, then this is the place to be.
Whose building it?
A group of developers led by an experienced CIO who has been involved in Agile (XP leavened with Scrum and a lot of painful learning) software development for a decade in both global corporations and small consultancies. Although we’re called Aluminum Trailer Company and we do make trailers, our corporate focus is on building a multidimensional company that leads in all areas in which it operates including manufacturing, software development, and Lean consulting.
Why are we building it?
We have tried many typical ERP solutions and discovered that they simultaneously do more than we need, don’t do exactly what we need, are inflexible, aren’t extensible, and are expensive. So we’re going to make our own. And we are confident that when other manufacturers see what our system will do they’ll be interested too.
Where are we building it?
It beautiful Nappanee, Indiana. Why would anyone want to move to Nappanee, IN? In the first place we don’t expect all the developers to move to Nappanee--just the leadership. However, Nappanee has many things going for it including a low cost of living, a central location between a number of major cities (Chicago, Indianapolis, Columbus), and a growing developer community.