Open to opportunities

Joe Royston

@joeroyston

Message

Director of Engineering and hands-on builder, scaling mission-driven software delivery.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking for a mission-driven team where I can be a player-coach—own delivery quality, culture, and platform reliability, while building production-grade agentic AI systems and partnering closely with stakeholders for trust through transparent execution.

I’m an engineering leader and hands-on technologist with 12+ years building, leading, and scaling software delivery across complex, multi-stakeholder environments. I operate as a genuine player-coach—close enough to pressure-test architecture decisions and set quality bars, while owning team culture, hiring, career development, and the organizational design that lets senior engineers move fast and autonomously.

I lead through consistent delivery practices: code review standards, testing discipline, deployment and incident response, and the build-vs-buy-vs-extend judgment that balances roadmap speed with platform investment. Most notably, I built and deployed production agentic AI workflows using Claude Code—turning task intake into PR creation, Slack notifications, and an autonomous scheduled PR security review agent running every 15 minutes unattended with adaptive diff strategy, prompt-injection hardening, and state corruption recovery. I’ve also led regulated migrations, including moving a HIPAA-compliant application to Azure, and modernized .NET systems by improving reliability through CI/CD. Outside engineering, I’m an active nonprofit leader—presiding over the Eric Royston Foundation and advising community-serving organizations—because mission-driven work is part of how I choose to operate.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Manager of Development & Software Delivery

Current

Fusionary – Web & Digital Agency

Nov 2022 - Present (3 years 8 months)

Engineering leader and hands-on developer across 25+ concurrent client engagements, owning team culture, technical quality, delivery ownership, and incident response practices. Built and deployed production agentic AI workflows using Claude Code, including a scheduled autonomous PR security review agent.

Engineering Team Leadership Hands On Development Architectural Coaching Technical Quality Bar Code Review Testing Discipline Incident Response Postmortems Agentic AI Claude Code AI Security Agents Deployment

Founding Board Member

Code on Wheels

Jan 2021 - Jan 2024 (3 years)

Served as a founding board member (2021–2024), helping establish the nonprofit’s mission, vision, and board to bring technology education to underserved communities.

Nonprofit Governance Board Leadership

Senior Developer / Director Development

Digital Industry Group (DIG)

Jun 2021 - Oct 2022 (1 year 4 months)

Led engineering delivery and culture across a portfolio of client environments, establishing code quality standards, delivery practices, and accountability frameworks. Designed and implemented automated data integration pipelines across disparate systems to improve production data integrity and reliability.

Coding Standards Data Pipelines Data Integrity Reliability

Consultant – Microsoft Dynamics 365

Avtex Solutions, LLC

Mar 2020 - Jun 2021 (1 year 3 months)

Led migration of a HIPAA-compliant application to Azure infrastructure, scoping requirements and coordinating compliance and cross-functional delivery. Served as technical lead across multiple enterprise client engagements while maintaining delivery momentum and stakeholder confidence.

Azure HIPAA compliance Technical Leadership Cross functional Coordination Stakeholder Management

Developer – Internal Systems

Kamps Pallets, Inc.

Dec 2018 - Mar 2020 (1 year 3 months)

Modernized mission-critical internal .NET applications serving hundreds of daily users while balancing feature delivery with production operational stability. Implemented CI/CD pipelines via Azure DevOps to improve deployment reliability and reduce post-deployment incidents.

C# .NET CI CD Azure DevOps Production Operations Operational Stabilization Incident Reduction

Lead Developer / Solution Architect

Springthrough

Jul 2016 - Sep 2018 (2 years 2 months)

Architected and delivered enterprise web platforms in Agile environments. Mentored junior developers and served as technical escalation for production issues and architectural decisions.

Solution Architecture Agile Scrum Mentorship

Director of Live Television Newscasts

WOOD-TV8 (NBC Affiliate)

Jul 2000 - Oct 2014 (14 years 3 months)

Led mission-critical live broadcasts in a zero-failure, real-time environment, directing live newscasts and teams up to 7. Designed and built custom software tools to aggregate and route live data during broadcasts.

Real Time Systems Zero Error Operations Team Leadership Data Aggregation Routing

President & Founding Board Member

Eric Royston Foundation

Serves as President and a founding board member, owning technology strategy, infrastructure, donor communications, and organizational leadership for the foundation.

Nonprofit Leadership technology strategy Infrastructure Leadership Organizational Leadership

Board Member & Technology Advisor

Fountain Hill Center

Serves as a board member and technology advisor, including leading a website migration with direct system integrations for a community-serving nonprofit.

Website Migration Systems Integrations