Yep. I worked for Esri for 17 years. The lead PE dev is a math/geography double major (master's in one, Ph.D. in the other, I think?) and a great C/C++ developer to boot.
I used to walk by his office and find large integrals on his whiteboard, or see him working on his latest project with Mathematica and his code editor.
Wow. 17 years is a long time. I would love to hear about your experiences some day.
Esri is an interesting company to me. Always been slightly fascinated by it. One of the older software companies and still privately owned. I spent a good chunk of my early career both aligning and competing with it.
My colleague and I ran into Jack once. Two random nobodies, visiting campus for obscure reasons, running into the main building to escape the random rain storm, and he opens the door to let us in.
Knew exactly why we were there, and asked us what we thought of AWAB before stating something to the effect of: "I don't know what we've been doing all these years. People don't want to buy our stuff and then have to learn to write code, they just want to make maps."
I'm convinced that's the key to the next world-eating web mapping company: stop forcing non-technical orgs to have to become technical orgs with technical staff just to solve simple spatial problems. It's orthogonal to their competencies and primary directives.
Easier said than done of course.
P.s. I know (of) who you are referring to btw, and he's somewhat of a legend, even outside Redlands.
I used to walk by his office and find large integrals on his whiteboard, or see him working on his latest project with Mathematica and his code editor.