Developer Showcase Series: Jordan Jennings, Senior Software Engineer, Skuchain

Developer Showcase Series: Jordan Jennings, Senior Software Engineer, Skuchain

Next up in our Developer Showcase Series is Jordan Jennings, a Senior Software Engineer at Skuchain. This blog series highlights the work and motivations of developers, users and researchers collaborating on Hyperledger’s incubated frameworks and modules. Here’s what Jordan had to say about working on blockchain and Hyperledger:

Jordan Jennings, Senior Software Engineer at Skuchain

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? There is a huge expanse of applications to be explored in the realm of distributed trust-less databases via blockchain technology. If you are looking for problems to solve in the space then the places of greatest value are those where the risk of data manipulation are the highest and fingerprintability is most valuable. Measurements, signals or data which come signed straight from the hashed source and placed into an immutable ledger decrease the risks of fraud and increase the visibility to privileged parties. The chain of trust from client to ledger itself has many challenges aside from product development, and the products themselves must be such that lend themselves to the value of providing immutable proof of previous events from trusted client devices. Give a bit of background on what you’re working on, and let us know what was it that made you want to get into blockchain? Joining Skuchain and diving into the ecosystem was a no brainer. While I did not have any domain specific knowledge, I was only a software engineering background (specifically in video software at Cisco Systems). I recognized the potential for blockchain technology to completely change entire industries. At Skuchain, the industry of focus is the supply chain, and the innovation we are bringing to old antiquated processes has enormous value for customers. The pitch given to me when interviewing was filled with the potential to make a mark on this industry in ways that others have yet to accomplish, treading new ground in a multi-trillion dollar industry. As someone who is passionate about exploring what can be done with new software technologies joining a startup in this space was a perfect fit. What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year? The role of Hyperledger in the underlying tech of our application is immense. Stability, and well documented APIs are of the greatest importance for usability and confidence in deploying on premise installations of Skuchain applications. Thus far, Hyperledger hasg proven itself in our tests. I am expecting that an unwavering focus on bullet proof releases will make it the continued choice of Skuchain and my personal recommendation for enterprise blockchain applications. Well designed and documented APIs will also prove extremely useful for startups looking to maintain high velocity when shipping releases of their products.Ease of use for developers is one of the most important aspects when considering the adoption of new technologies. It enables software ecosystems to quickly form around platforms which in turn can help startups to find product market fit under tight resources and limited time. Thus the importance of these two continuous goals for Hyperledger cannot be understated. What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve? The promises of blockchain technologies require work outside of the software, this type of work comes in the form of education, legal and community building around software. Today much of what can be done is not understood from both the technical and legal standpoint. This incurs a risk of the unknown when venturing into products where users may not understand the huge value proposition or courts may not recognize the mathematical properties which bind an agreement between two parties. A path must be forged to reach these powerful use cases of blockchain, production systems must be shipped and used by customers to increase tangibility, battles won in courts, it must be done carefully to avoid over promise and under delivery, which has the possibility of creating an AI winter scenario for blockchain technologies. Removing these problems in the blockchain space will break barriers to things we cannot imagine doing with the technology today.