About
From building software to advising the decisions around it.
Mehakdeep Chhina is a software engineer and independent technology advisor based in Ottawa, Canada. He works with founders and leadership teams on the decisions that surround building, buying, and running software.
Ottawa, Ontario · Canada
Mehakdeep has spent more than eight years building and supporting software. Production systems, frontend and backend applications, integrations, architecture, and the harder problems that surface once something is live.
Today, he works with founders and leadership teams on the decisions that sit around that work. What to build, what to buy, who should own it, and what the organization can realistically support.
The work sits across both sides of technology: what it takes to build and run, and what an organization needs for it to hold up in practice.
A perspective shaped by delivery
The realities of running software rarely show up in the pitch.
Years of building software, investigating production issues, integrating systems, and working through the constraints that appear during implementation, alongside teaching and mentoring across very different levels of experience.
A technically valid solution is not automatically the right one. It has to fit the people using it, the systems already in place, the capability of the team, and the direction of the organization.
The decisions around the technology
The move toward advisory work.
Over time, Mehakdeep became more interested in the decisions that happen before and around the technology itself.
Why is something being built? What problem is it actually solving? Should the organization build it internally, buy an existing platform, or work with an external partner? Who will own it after launch? Can the team support it? What risks and dependencies are being accepted?
These questions often decide the success of an initiative long before development begins.
How he works
No preferred platform. No default answer.
Each engagement starts with the organization and the outcome, not with a preferred platform, product, or vendor. From there, the work turns to understanding the people involved and the environment already in place.
From there, he helps leadership:
- Clarify the real problem.
- Compare the available paths.
- Challenge the assumptions underneath them.
- Understand the technical and operational implications.
- Identify ownership, capability, and delivery requirements.
- Set a direction that can be implemented and supported.
Some engagements call for an independent assessment or second opinion. Others call for ongoing technical leadership through the move from decision to execution.
Background
Where the work has been.
Eight plus years across product companies, enterprise software, teaching, and independent advisory, in Canada and abroad.
Experience spanning software development, enterprise technology, teaching, mentoring, and entrepreneurship.
Organization names are shown for professional-history context and do not imply endorsement.