Casey West - Resume

Contact Information

Casey West

Professional Summary

A technology leader defining the engineering playbook for the era of agentic AI and autonomous systems. My mission is to build the technology, teams, and culture that power the next generation of software. With over 25 years of experience spanning internet infrastructure to AI platforms, I specialize in turning visionary concepts into resilient, scalable, and operable realities. At Google, I have focused on bridging the gap between this vision and practical execution, empowering the world’s largest companies to modernize their development culture, accelerate software delivery, and harness the power of generative AI for empowered, productive, and happy teams.

Key Achievements

• Pioneered the “gcloud create” program, a hands-on, high-impact developer advocacy model that directly embeds with enterprise engineering teams to solve their most complex challenges, delivering working GenAI and cloud-centric solutions in days, not months.
• Established as a leading authority on DORA and SRE principles, creating and delivering workshops and strategic guidance that have transformed the engineering cultures at major automotive, financial services, and retail organizations, measurably improving their software delivery performance and reliability.
• Led the charge for GenAI adoption within the enterprise, guiding strategic customers in building their first agentic AI and conversational search capabilities, directly influencing their technology strategy and positioning Google as a leader in the new AI paradigm.
• Cultivated a culture of mentorship and excellence within the Developer Relations organization, playing a key role in recruitment, shaping the professional growth of colleagues, and consistently championing the “Googliness” that underpins successful, empathetic customer engagement.
• Authored “The Agentic Manifesto,” a seminal document defining the new operating model for a world of non-deterministic, autonomous AI.
• Engineered a complete modernization of the software development lifecycle at WhiteHat Security, increasing release frequency by 300% and transforming the company’s deployment capabilities.
• Played a key role in establishing Cloud Foundry as a leading cloud application platform through global advocacy, enterprise consulting, and shaping the open-source ecosystem.
• Demonstrated over a decade of leadership in the open-source community by co-organizing major technical conferences and publishing dozens of widely-used software libraries.

Employment History

Lead Developer Advocate

Google Cloud April 2017 - Present

As a Lead Developer Advocate for Google Cloud, I have been at the forefront of enterprise modernization, guiding Fortune 500 companies in their adoption of cloud-native and AI-driven engineering. My role has centered on translating complex technologies into tangible business value through strategic advising on DORA and SRE, leading high-impact “gcloud create” engagements to build pioneering GenAI solutions, and serving as a key technical voice at global conferences and for major product launches like the Gemini CLI.

• Shaped enterprise adoption of cloud-centric and AI technologies by advising Fortune 500 companies on implementing DORA, SRE, and modern DevOps practices, directly contributing to multi-million dollar deals and significant expansions of Google Cloud usage.
• Delivered hundreds of high-impact technical presentations, workshops, and keynotes at premier industry conferences like Google Cloud Next and KubeCon, as well as executive briefings for C-level audiences at global enterprises.
• Built and scaled a strategic partnership with a major enterprise software provider, creating joint hands-on content and delivering workshops globally, culminating in an event at their headquarters that attracted over 1,000 developers and solidified the relationship.
• Provided critical thought leadership and technical expertise for strategic product launches and keynotes, including Google Cloud Next and the Gemini CLI launch, ensuring the messaging and demos resonated powerfully with the developer community.
• Fostered deep, trusted relationships with engineering teams at key customers, leading multi-day, hands-on “gcloud create” engagements to build solutions for conversational AI, platform modernization, and software supply chain security.
• Acted as a key community ambassador and culture carrier, mentoring fellow advocates, leading internal knowledge-sharing initiatives, and playing a significant role in hiring and developing top talent for the Developer Relations organization.

Principal Technologist for Cloud Foundry

Pivotal June 2015 - April 2017

As a Principal Technologist and a key advocate for the Cloud Foundry platform, I championed Pivotal’s open-source and commercial products on a global scale. My role involved extensive international speaking on cloud-native topics like microservices and continuous delivery, authoring articles for publications like O’Reilly, and advising Fortune 500 companies on adopting modern software practices to deliver significant business value.

• Elevated the global presence of Cloud Foundry by delivering hundreds of keynote presentations, tutorials, and training sessions annually to audiences of thousands at premier industry conferences.
• Shaped enterprise adoption of cloud-native practices by advising Fortune 500 companies on implementing DevOps, continuous delivery, and modern infrastructure with Pivotal’s technology stack.
• Drove the growth of the Cloud Foundry ecosystem by acting as a key community ambassador, fostering contributions and collaboration across the open-source landscape.
• Influenced product strategy and developer experience for key offerings like Cloud Foundry, Concourse CI, and Spring Boot by synthesizing and championing feedback from the field and enterprise clients.

UI Architect & DevOps Architect

WhiteHat Security November 2012 - June 2015

Software Architect and team lead responsible for sweeping change and modernization across the organization. Acted as a strong, hands-on technical lead and change agent to bring modern development tools and processes into Engineering and effected positive change in IT, development, QA, release, and design. I worked very effectively as a technical leader while remote.

• Spearheaded organizational modernization by rebuilding the SDLC from the ground up, enabling continuous delivery and increasing release frequency by 300% through the adoption of 12-factor app principles, automated pipelines (Jenkins, Ansible, Docker), and enhanced collaboration tools (GitHub Enterprise, HipChat, New Relic).
• Built and led high-performing teams (one DevOps, two Application Development) by implementing a modern hiring program that increased engineering diversity and confidence in candidate fit, resulting in eight key hires.
• Transformed infrastructure and deployment capabilities, converting the engineering organization from Subversion to GitHub Enterprise, automating delivery to private data centers and AWS in Germany, and executing a four-major-revision OS upgrade without downtime.
• Drove significant improvements in customer-facing applications by leading a team to iteratively rebuild the web application with Ruby on Rails, drastically improving performance and usability through prototyping, BDD, and refactoring.

Independent Software Consultant

Self Employed March 2009 - November 2012

Provided strategic consulting to a diverse client portfolio, from startups to Fortune 500 companies like Experian. Specialized in modernizing legacy systems, architecting for scale, and elevating team capabilities. Key contributions included leading security remediation efforts, introducing best practices for modular and testable software, and delivering high-value applications spanning real-time geospatial services, social networks, and data visualization dashboards.

Lead Software Engineer, Infrastructure & Architecture

CombineNet February 2008 - March 2009

Lead Developer & VP Engineering

Socialtext August 2005 - February 2008

Software Developer

pair Networks July 2003 - July 2005

Senior Systems Developer

DynDNS.org August 2002 - July 2003

Senior Software Engineer

Aaronsen Group August 2001 - August 2002

Software Engineer

Agnew Moyer Smith Inc February 2000 - August 2001

Community Involvement

Co-organizer

Rails Girls Pittsburgh

One of four organizers for this event which brought together local and national Ruby on Rails experts to teach women and girls how to program in a safe, friendly, supportive environment.

Co-organizer

Yet Another Perl Conference

One of four organizers for this annual conference. Designed and implemented website, delivered keynotes, and organized social events. 10th Anniversary.

Co-organizer

Pittsburgh Perl Workshop

One of four organizers for this annual conference. Designed and implemented websites for each year, managed sponsors, delivered keynotes, and organized social events.

CPAN Author

Comprehensive Perl Archive Network

Dozens of software libraries released as open source.

Core Competencies