QGIS and PostGIS were my jam when I worked in that space. We were an ESRI shop so Oracle/SQL Server with SDE (topped with ArcGIS) were the official tools. Some of us were always looking for ways to subvert the culture by building tools based on open source stacks.
One of my favorite experiences from that era: We were meeting with a few ESRI reps for some integration stuff. The lead hot-shot was on his phone playing around during the meeting. He was basically on autopilot. The other two folks were working with GeoJSON response convertors. I said, "I built one of those with TopoJSON". One guy said, "I've never heard of it". I showed them how it was much more efficient and used splines instead of points. The lead dropped his phone and said, "I need you to tell me MORE about that". I showed them the service. They invited me to lunch, I politely declined and said, "today's my last day so I have a ton of things to wrap up". I do miss that realm sometimes.
One of my favorite experiences from that era: We were meeting with a few ESRI reps for some integration stuff. The lead hot-shot was on his phone playing around during the meeting. He was basically on autopilot. The other two folks were working with GeoJSON response convertors. I said, "I built one of those with TopoJSON". One guy said, "I've never heard of it". I showed them how it was much more efficient and used splines instead of points. The lead dropped his phone and said, "I need you to tell me MORE about that". I showed them the service. They invited me to lunch, I politely declined and said, "today's my last day so I have a ton of things to wrap up". I do miss that realm sometimes.