Joel Mellor

Applications & operations engineering  ·  Design

I build production software and run the infrastructure it sits on. Seven years in K–12 technology, six running a design and development practice, and a habit of shipping end to end by myself.

Selected projects
Hambone Fantasy2024 – present
Firebase  ·  mobile-first PWA

A free pick'em and fantasy football game for private leagues. Seven picks a week, live scoring, season-long standings. Built and maintained solo.

PaperPal2026
React 18  ·  TypeScript  ·  Firebase

Expense management replacing three paper reimbursement workflows. Approval routing configurable per title and building, six-role access control, automated mileage via the Google Routes API, PDF generation through Cloud Functions, and authorization enforced in security rules rather than the client.

github.com/Orono-Public-Schools/PaperPal-Firebase
OPS Tech2026
Firebase  ·  Cloud Functions (Node 22)  ·  vanilla ESM

Migrated the department's internal portal off legacy Google Apps Script with no downtime and no maintenance window. Default-deny permissions in security rules, Google and ClassLink SAML sign-in, scheduled status sweeps and an email queue.

github.com/Orono-Public-Schools/ops-tech-site
Directory Tool2025 – 2026
C#  ·  .NET 10  ·  ASP.NET Core

A single lookup surface over identity, roster, schedule, and transportation data from five disconnected systems. Real-time LDAP queries rather than a synced copy, permissions resolved from AD security groups, and delegated password operations that removed a standing Active Directory privilege from staff who only needed the task.

Experience
Cloud Systems Specialist & Technology Support LeadJul 2023 – present
Orono Public Schools  ·  Orono, MN
  • Own the district's cloud infrastructure and identity services, covering Entra ID, on-premises Active Directory, ClassLink SSO and rostering, Google Workspace, Intune, and ChromeOS.
  • Lead technical support for staff and students, and set the practices the support team works from.
  • Designed, built, and support three production internal applications used daily by staff across all buildings.
  • Led a Microsoft 365 licensing remediation across 333 staff accounts, and resolved a district-wide OAuth outage caused by an under-scoped Marketplace listing that silently blocked every new token grant.
  • Designed and facilitated a cybersecurity tabletop across five systems, producing a continuity and incident-response reference plus a remediation backlog, and ran MFA rollout for secondary student accounts with segmented communications for students, staff, and families.
Information Technology SpecialistJul 2021 – Jul 2023
Orono Public Schools  ·  Orono, MN
  • Technical support for staff and students across desktops, mobile devices, and software applications, plus device deployment and mobile device management.
  • Began building internal tooling to automate recurring support and administrative work, which led into the systems role.
Founder, Design & DevelopmentAug 2020 – present
Mellor LLC  ·  Self-employed
  • Websites, brand and interface design, logos, newsletters, flyers, and other digital media for clients and organizations, plus custom WordPress plugins and API integration work.
  • Six years delivering to paying clients, which is where most of the design sensibility in my application work comes from.
Technology SupportFeb 2019 – Jul 2021
Wayzata Public Schools  ·  Plymouth, MN
  • Technology support across a large suburban district, covering hardware, mobile devices, and classroom software for staff and students.
How I build

Coding assistants are a standard part of my workflow, and most of the effort goes into setup rather than prompting. My repositories carry a CLAUDE.md defining architecture, schema, and design constraints, plus skill files the agent loads on its own when a task matches, and a plan.md tracking production state and queued work. Branch rulesets require pull requests and passing checks, so production ships only through a merge. Generated code is a draft; CI decides whether it ships.

Toolchain & education

BuildTypeScript · JavaScript · React · Vite · Tailwind · C# / .NET · Node · PHP · HTML/CSS

PlatformFirebase (Firestore, Auth, Cloud Functions, Hosting, Storage) · ASP.NET Core · WordPress · Google Workspace · Microsoft 365 · Intune

IdentityEntra ID · Active Directory · SAML SSO · OAuth · LDAP/LDAPS · RBAC design

OperationsGAM · Rapid7 InsightIDR · PowerShell · Bash · Git · GitHub Actions CI · AI coding agents

EducationB.A., Youth Ministry · University of Northwestern – St. Paul · CompTIA A+