Twenty-eight years of spatial software
I'm Jamie Popkin. Since 1998 I've built software around maps and geographic data: first as a GIS specialist, then as a web-mapping architect, and today as a full-stack developer shipping production spatial systems. Little Earth is how I do that work now.
From desktop GIS to the modern web
I started in the late 1990s doing hands-on GIS and cartographic production with Arc/Info, Perl and Oracle, building the spatial-data plumbing behind provincial land-use planning in British Columbia.
As the web grew up, so did the work. Desktop GIS gave way to web mapping, and I moved into JavaScript and full-stack development while keeping the spatial and database fundamentals. Over the last decade that has meant delivering modern, containerised geospatial applications: React and Vue front ends, Node and PostGIS back ends, CI/CD on government infrastructure.
The constant through all of it is spatial: turning maps, sensors and big geographic datasets into software people can actually use. I work as a one-person practice, which means a single point of contact who can carry a spatial project from the database to the pixels.
A few representative projects
A cross-section across two-plus decades: government and private, field data to real-time systems.
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2018–26
Forest engineering and terrain analysis
Province of BC, Ministry of Forests
Long-running spatial-data and analysis work for BC's forests ministry, turning province-scale elevation and resource datasets into tools that support forest engineering and natural-resource decisions.
Vue, Node, PostGIS, GDAL
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2012–21
Real-time transportation data
Province of BC, Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
Web applications and data pipelines feeding the province's transportation systems, including variable-speed-limit data surfaced to the public through DriveBC.
DriveBCNode, React, D3, OpenLayers
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2022–23
Mines Digital Trust
Province of BC, Energy and Mines
Full-stack work on a compliance platform for BC's mining sector, built and shipped with modern CI/CD on the province's container platform.
Government, no public linkReact, TypeScript, OpenShift, GitHub Actions
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2020–22
Invasive Species platform
Open source, BC Government (bcgov)
Field mobile data collection plus an administrative web portal with spatial analysis, helping track and manage invasive species across British Columbia.
bcgov/invasivesbcReact, PostGIS, WMS and WFS
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2020–21
Wildlife telemetry warehouse
Open source, BC Government (bcgov)
Ingestion and mapping of high-frequency wildlife GPS-collar telemetry: a moving picture of animal movement for biologists and managers.
bcgov/bctw-uiNode, PostgreSQL, web mapping
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2024
Restoration tracker
Open source, BC Government (bcgov)
Tracking environmental restoration projects in BC's northeast, with rich spatial visualisation and document management.
bcgov/nert-restoration-trackerReact, MapLibre, Node
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2010–24
Marine and environmental data apps
Private sector, Lat37
A run of applications for a marine and environmental data company: supply-chain traceability, fisheries catch analysis, and long-running data tools.
Private, under NDAD3, PostGIS, AWS
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2019–now
Telecom GIS, Africa
International, Research ICT Solutions
Geospatial web applications supporting telecommunications planning for clients in Namibia, Uganda and beyond.
Behind a firewallMapLibre, GeoServer, PostGIS
Several of these projects are open source on the BC Government's GitHub at github.com/bcgov. My own experiments live at github.com/popkinj.
Where it started, 1998 to 2010
The early years were spent deep in provincial GIS: the land-use plan for Haida Gwaii (then the Queen Charlotte Islands) and its published map atlas, landscape-unit planning, and years of spatial-data infrastructure and analysis for BC's land and resource agencies.
That era of Arc/Info, AML, Perl, Oracle, SDE and the first web-mapping frameworks is where the spatial instincts came from, and it still shapes how I build things today.
Have a project with a map in it?
Whether it's a spatial system, a web map or a stubborn data problem, I'd be glad to hear about it.