Cory's Curriculum Vitae
Hi, I'm Cory! I'm an experienced full-stack engineer passionate about design systems, web apps, and amazing user experiences. I'm an avid problem solver who enjoys learning new things, mentoring others, and making the world a better, more accessible place through technology.
I'm also a U.S. Army veteran who loves being outdoors, exploring new places, hiking, four-wheeling, and learning new tech. I began programming at the age of 12 on a TRS-80 Pocket Computer and haven't stopped since.
Education #
M.S. Information Technology #
- Florida Institute of Technology (2011)
B.S. Computer Information Systems #
- Florida Institute of Technology (2010)
Experience #
Font Awesome (2022 – Present) #
Principal Software Engineer
Currently building Shoelace into a sustainable open source project under the expert guidance of the folks who created Font Awesome.
Microsoft (2021 – 2022) #
Senior Software Engineer; Technical Lead
Helped establish and lead an internal design system team with the goal of enabling hundreds of micro-apps to transition to a standard, consistent UI library based on web components. Implemented a custom, modern build process that significantly reduced build times and simplified the development process.
Implemented a custom documentation website with interactive demos of every component. Reduced the burden of documenting components to encourage a document-as-you-go approach. Implemented in-code documentation techniques to ensure accuracy as code evolves.
Introduced React-wrapped versions of all components to improve developer experience for a large majority of consumers. Added examples for all frameworks and components with one-click access to interactive sandboxes.
Indeed (2021) #
Senior Design System UX Developer
Designed, developed, and supported components as part of the core design system team. Worked with designers to understand specifications and ensure a smooth development process for all stakeholders.
Worked to simplify complex documentation, build, and release processes. Advocated for simplicity and framework-agnostic solutions. Gave presentations on the benefits of using web components as a long-term solution for the organization's design system.
Meltwater (2018 – 2020) #
Senior Software Engineer
Lead engineer working in conjunction with the design team to establish and maintain a framework-agnostic design system based on web components. Built dozens of foundational elements and a corresponding documentation website.
Enabled team autonomy by preventing framework lock-in while providing a consistent UX throughout the organization. Assisted teams in incorporating web components into their existing applications. Consulted with teams across the organization to encourage reusable solutions using similar technologies.
A Beautiful Site, LLC (2008 – Present) #
Founder & Sole Proprietor
Responsible for design, development, marketing, and support of Surreal CMS, a hosted content management system. Grew SaaS to power more than 25,000 websites.
Created Shoelace, a popular, open source library of web components with over 500 million monthly CDN hits (as of January 2024). Created SimpleImage, an open source PHP library that makes image processing with GD as easy as possible. Also created Postleaf, an open source blogging platform with a focus on inline editing (archived in 2021).
Consulted with a multitude of web design agencies to assess and implement various client needs on frontend, backend, accessibility, UX, etc.
Florida Tech (2006 – 2010) #
Senior Web Developer
Primary contributor to a university-wide website redesign, including planning, design, development, and implementation processes.
Designed and developed a homegrown content management system (CMS) to support a significant portion of the University’s web presence. Saved the university thousands of dollars in Dreamweaver/Contribute licenses annually.
Created online check-in system that reduced a five-day orientation process to one day, saving nearly $50k annually.
Gave presentations promoting the use of new technologies and web standards. Topics included W3C standards, Section 508 and WCAG accessibility, semantic markup, appropriate use of CSS, JavaScript libraries, etc.
Diamond Precision Machine (2004 – 2006) #
IT Manager
Developed a web-based order management application to track the production of goods. Features included production management, proposal management, inventory management, contacts management, online fax retrieval, automatic document generation, and reporting. Developed a customer portal to allow customers to view and track production orders.
Maintained on-site web servers, email servers, and corporate intranet. Created digital versions of all HR forms to expedite processing, searching, and archiving.
Contact #
Since this page is public, I've elected not to post my phone number here. Please use any of the following methods to contact me if you'd like to chat.
Want to learn more? Check out the "about" page.