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I, Jason McIntosh, have created and maintained technology and techonology-oriented organizations as my main occupation since the 20th century. This year finds me open to new opportunities.

I would like to apply my decades of experience in software engineering, writing, and leadership to work that makes the world better.

Across my career I have launched and led numerous technological projects, teams, and organizations. I have learned that writing code is the easy part; setting goals, managing user expectations, and leading teams to meet both provides a ceaseless challenge. It is the true heart of technology work.

When I do write code, I prefer stability over novelty, choosing unexcitingly timeworn tools and techniques. The resulting software then runs indefinitely, fulfilling its intended purpose with both high maintainability and minimal need for actual maintenance.

I live in New York City, and am quite comfortable working remotely.

My software

Bumpyskies is my masterpiece: a predictor of clear-air turbulence for commercial flights over the contintental United States. It chords together publicly available weather and flight data to visualize flight paths, coloring them according to expected turbulence intensity. Try it out with a random upcoming flight.

I designed and co-created the online reservation system for Boston’s Bay State Cruise Company in the mid–2010s, maintaining it for several years after. This system is responsible for all of this successful business’s ferry lines and cruises, used both as a self-service online checkout and as a point-of-sale system.

For the latter half of the 2010s I maintained and improved the legacy system that Oxford University Press uses to manage all of its American ebook sales and subscriptions.

Other open-source projects I created and actively maintain include Plerd, a blog-focused static site generator; Sweat, a workout timer; and Whim, a command-line utility for working with Webmention technology.

My leadership

In 2015 I co-founded the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, a charitable digital-arts nonprofit. As of 2020 I remain on the board, continuing to serve as its president. During my presidency, the organization has grown steadily, launching several programs and performing the ongoing fund-raising work to keep them fueled.

IFTF’s founding happened amidst my four years leading the Annual Interactive Fiction Competition, the world’s oldest continuously operating online amateur game festival. During my tenure, I revitalized the 20-year-old competition, rebuilding (and open sourcing) its software, expanding its reach, and redefining it as a forward-looking showcase of new work from independent creators. While no longer the competition chair, I remain active as its technical coordinator.

And, of course, I led all the technology projects described in the previous section of this page.

My writing

I have a separate portfolio page about my technical writing.

My ideal employer

I hope to work as a technology leader within an organization performing some sort of public good. I wish to help produce software tools that improve the world, even just a little.

This effectively means that I would prefer not to work as a cog in a tech company per se, but rather as the technological force within an organization that exists to further human welfare, whether in the arts, science, or social justice.

Résumé and contact information

Here is my current résumé, and here is my LinkedIn profile.

My homepage is at https://jmac.org, and my email address is jmac@jmac.org.

Thank you very much for your time and attention today.