History
InspectAR was created by 5 guys. Four of them were from Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland. They went through Y Combinator and got funding to make this product. The CEO had ties to a microchip manufacturing company. They were working on this for 5 years before I joined. There was a top notch marketing intern and a full time employee working on the file parser.
I joined, having found a posting on Indeed looking for a Unity Developer.
Absolutely excellent work environment, including the downtown office on Water Street overlooking the St. John's harbor. Good quality standing desks, lovely erognomic chairs, and just really great coworkers.
We worked with a dozen interns over the following couple years: Krushnaraj, Abdul, Andrew, Tao, Shuaishuai, Jarret, Priyanka, Sandeep, Jacob, Harsh, Anna, Josh. In March 2026, I was trying to record all the relevant details to an internal wiki and was caught by how many people I personally spent time with who had influence on the product. It was the first time that even mattered.
At different times I worked as a direct report to the CTO, then as part of a team of three, then as a solo client dev, and again briefly with a dedicated report.
A one-of-a-kind product with a one-of-a-kind team. I'll miss them.
- Timeline -
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March 2020
Hired at InspectAR!
Mobile friendly design for all platforms, with a grey color scheme. 5 founding members with one other employee before me.
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May 2020
Version 2.0 - App Redesign
Dedicated UI paradigms for desktop vs. mobile. Desktop uses mini windows while mobile has integrated states.
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September 2020
InspectAR Acquired!
Mere weeks after I moved to St. John's, Newfoundland, Cadence Design Systems Inc. acquires the company. Role change from "Unity Developer" to "Software Engineer I"
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July 2022
Promotion!
Became a Software Engineer II
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September 2022
The business unit's CTO and original inspectAR developer leaves, putting me in charge of development
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Jan 2023 - Apr 2023
Added an intern
We brought on an intern to help with inspectAR development. I interviewed applicants and was ultimately responsible for his output.
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March 2024
The founding Product Manager leaves, eventually leading to a very different feature implementation workflow.
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January 2026
Promotion!
Became a Lead Software Engineer
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March 2026
Development Paused
What happens next?
Major Features Created or Improved
Images sourced from Cadence.com
Dashboard
Inspired by GDrive and Windows, featured filtering, sharing, folders, and RBAC. Adjust project before launching.
Viewer
Show the design on the board with augmented reality tracking. Functionality grouped to dockable windows.
Mobile Viewer
Maximize camera feed visibility where possible. Natural-feeling navigation of dense mechanical information.
Attachments
Sorted by type, with flags and size visible. Download files and sync changes.
Procedures
Significant UI work supporting comprehensive user-built debug instructions
Color by Net
Required a deep dive into the rendering system to prioritize colors in new contexts.
User Flow
Iteration from feedback on how clients expect to use our tools.
Screenshot Markup
Take a screenshot and then draw with marker, shapes, and text.
Board Complexity
Versioned project files, data migration, other maintainance.