Collaborators
Mallowfields works as a team. Collaboration is a practical requirement to build quality software that solves more actual problems than it creates.
We are experienced masters of our trades. We are more than the sum of our parts, but our parts are formidable too. Working with us means engaging our actual, specific, human selves, with our accumulated histories of skills, knowledge, and perspectives.
Kendell Joseph
Chief Technology Officer, Principal Software Engineer Kendell is Mallowfields' inventor, ambassador, professor, recruiter, and coach. He is by trade a geographic information systems (GIS) professional, an expert JavaScript developer, and a restless reformer in the practice of teaching computers and science to kids and adults. He has the unique talent of turning vague-sounding technical ideas into vivid, specific, working prototypes, and this talent is the foundation of several of Mallowfields' original software products.
Mallowfields was founded in large part to bring Kendell's prototype products to market as robust, scalable, useful software for government and industry. He drives Mallowfields as a company as he makes connections, solves problems and casts a vision of what could be. At the same time, his authentic kindness and interest in people brought together and sustains the group of individual humans that are the employee-owners of Mallowfields.
Jessa Challa
CEO, Software Engineer Jessa is Mallowfields' lead frontend developer, our geographic information systems (GIS) expert, and the leader of all facets of our community engagement. From alumni boards to professional networks to teaching introductory coding courses to equity-design workshops, Jessa is a constant advocate and active participant in West Michigan-based efforts to democratize technology. She is the archetype of Mallowfields' collective goal to build digital systems for a purpose, for people, for good.
For our clients and customers, she builds beautiful, useful user interfaces. For our team, she is the totally authentic and uncompromising heart and conscience of our company. Jessa builds most of the visible parts of our software herself, but she makes sure we all build things that matter.
Carla Siler-Maddalena
Director of Products Carla is Mallowfields' manager of people, products, and projects. With 15 years of experience as a software engineer building enterprise applications and systems automation for manufacturing, Carla understands all the parts -- and all of the people. She knows what can and cannot be built, and why. She extracts clear-cut achievable goals from vague desires, and sets a clear direction through scattered piles of possibilities.
Carla does all of this with a rare blend of no-nonsense clarity and personal warmth. She drives our work for ourselves and our clients without sacrificing the well being of the humans involved. Whatever page you're on, she'll be there with you.
Anel Guel
Software Engineer, Associate Software Architect Anel is a primary contributor in backend service software development, relational databases, and data analysis. Her career history spanning from the Peace Corps to civil service to longtime community involvement in Southwest Grand Rapids strongly informs her understanding of how technology affects work and life, for better or worse.
Mallowfields has no boss. But in our small team full of strong personalities and big ambitions, Anel is a mediator and guide, a strong voice that keeps us working in the same direction as we plan, decide, and act as a group.
Joshua Honig
Principal Software Architect Joshua is Mallowfields' lead engineer, with primary responsibility for solution architecture and backend implementation: He draws diagrams, explains things, writes code, and guides the engineering work of the rest of the team. Joshua is also the primary architect of Mallowfields' governing structure, drawing many of the blueprints for the foundations of our corporate republic. Actually laying those foundations is, by definition, the work of the whole team.
Joshua's hostility to nonsense is neither guarded nor a secret, yet his empathy for people is also clear. His passion to use machines and rules to give people agency over their world was an important motive for founding Mallowfields. While he relishes the challenges of building digital machines, he values compassion over all else, no matter what a system is made of.