http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/17/forrester-tablets-outsell-netbooks/

Did you know that a couple hundred dollars’ worth of new light bulbs can save you as much on energy costs as investing $20,000 to install solar panels on your roof? Neither did I before I started working here. But I’ve also discovered that even seasoned engineers often have trouble sifting through data to see what better opportunities exist. In my 7 years as a software developer in Houston, I actually never spent much time in the energy industry, so it’s been a privilege to learn so much about this new world of fascinating puzzles.

There have been plenty of reasons for a technologist such as myself to get a kick out of working in this company. We get to play with cutting-edge tablet computers, expensive engineering toys such as thermal cameras, and write code using some of the latest software development frameworks. However, it is even more enriching to hear a veteran energy auditor with decades of field experience explain some of the problems we are trying to solve in our code. I’ve worked in small companies as well as a Fortune 100 global firm, and in the course of serving the needs of the business, I’ve rarely had the luxury to spend as much time learning from domain experts. In today’s world, it’s also rare to encounter an industry so greatly lacking in information technology, so my teammates and I feel like real trailblazers.

I know a lot of software developers who have created touch screen applications on various devices. One friend of mine has worked on iPhone games, another has built a music-related app, and I’m sure you’ve seen various tools such as currency converters, flight trackers, and calorie counters. But I have yet to meet another programmer who has worked on a touch interface for engineering software. Have you seen AutoCAD for the iPad yet? It’s definitely a challenge trying to provide the necessary functionality with a high level of usability, but our team is really enjoying whiteboarding the possibilities and playing with prototypes until we settle on a good way for a user to tap the screen to accomplish a given task . You poke your head into a conference room and see half a dozen T8 fluorescents in the room? We’ll try to let you save that information with as few finger taps on the screen as possible so you can be on your way in no time.

All of this innovating and learning is pretty satisfying in and of itself, but it’s even more thrilling to know that our efforts are not just going towards helping someone’s bottom line. We hope our solutions will vastly improve energy efficiency throughout the country and the world. Many programmers would love to have the chance to impact so many lives, and it was the most important factor which led me to move across the country to collaborate with the other visionaries on our team.

- Stephen Huey