Hey, I'm Cory 👋
Software Engineering Leader with over 10 years of experience scaling teams and driving organizational transformation. Currently on sabbatical and exploring opportunities as a senior technical consultant and engineering manager. Expert in technical strategy, team development, and enterprise architecture.
As former Engineering Community of Practice Lead at the Office of the CTO at the Department of Veterans Affairs through the United States Digital Service, I led major technical transformations from 2020 to 2024. I directed engineering strategy for Software Factory, Engineering Excellence, and other key initiatives while responsibly growing our engineering team headcount by 66%. I established and led the Identity Working Group to unify Veteran-facing web access, and most recently spearheaded Developer Experience transformation across the enterprise - including implementing shared services (design systems, SSO, APM tooling) and creating an Internal Developer Platform managing >600 APIs and technical systems.
I'm passionate about contributing to open-source software, maintaining high code quality standards, and building great products. My approach balances technical excellence with practical solutions, always focusing on intuitive user experiences and maintainable architecture.
My leadership journey in the private sector spans ~6 years of progressive engineering management experience at high-growth startups. At companies like JazzHR & Ibotta (which have since been acquired or NASDAQ-listed), I built and directed high-performing engineering teams while maintaining technical architecture oversight. These experiences taught me how to scale engineering organizations while preserving technical excellence and driving innovation. During my consulting tenure, I led technical strategy and implementation for enterprise-scale solutions at major telecommunications companies, including architecting Micro-Frontend systems and implementing OAuth 2.0 infrastructure.
While my technical foundation includes deep expertise in Javascript and PHP ecosystems, with additional proficiency in Go, Java, and other technologies, my focus has evolved to engineering leadership, technical strategy, and organizational design. Beyond technology, I'm an entrepreneur and homebrewer who values the balance between rapid delivery and sustainable architecture.
Snap Sentiment - November 2024Next.js • Stripe • AWS • TailwindAutomated & Verified Reviews for Your Business - helping companies collect and display verified customer reviews.Email Bits - September 2024Machine Learning • React • Tailwind • AWSBeautiful HTML Email Designs Made Easy - a CodePen-inspired platform specifically for creating, editing, and sharing email templates.In Short Pod - August 2024Next.js • Generative AI • Text To Speech • AWS • BuildspacePersonalized Podcast platform built during Buildspace Season 5 - converting your interests, location, and more into a personalized audio experience.Website CO2 Emissions Tracker - February 2023Astro • Node • Puppeteer • Tailwind • GitHub.comInitially built in 72 hours, this project has been a fun way to track the CO2 emissions of government websites.Toucan Trips - October 2023Astro • Node • Supabase • AWSThis was a fun thing to build to ping an API on a cron job to alert me of any low-cost airfare deals.Cabeça de Queijo - September 2023Astro • AWS • i8nBuild a bi-lingual fan club website for the Green Bay Packers fans in Brazil. Figuring out how to grow the fan club and get more people involved.Garnering 296,532 votes & passing with 82.05% `YES` - we organized the opt out of Senate Bill 152 in the City & County of Denver Colorado - allowing the City to, if they choose, offer telecommunications (internet, tv, etc) to their constituents.
After nearly a year of reviewing the official rules for what constitutes a waffle, we were able to break the previous record for the tallest stack of waffles.