Casey West - Resume

Contact Information

Casey West

Professional Summary

I lead the AI Infrastructure and Applied Engineering Developer Relations teams at Google Cloud. One covers GKE and the accelerators, orchestration, and drivers that keep large training, fine-tuning, and inference jobs running; the other puts Google Cloud engineers alongside a customer’s own team to co-engineer a mission-critical system together. Agents are arriving in production at real scale, so my teams help enterprises get the most out of the world’s most capable AI hardware and build the governance, security, and performance foundations that let them run those agents with confidence. Across more than 25 years in internet infrastructure, application platforms, and information security, I have turned hard problems into systems that hold up in production.

Key Achievements

• Founded Applied Engineering in February 2023, the Google Cloud Developer Relations program where our engineers co-engineer a mission-critical solution alongside a customer’s own team, on the customer’s project. We run about ten engagements a year, so we are selective: the right team, on the right project, at the right time, with an executive sponsor and a real commitment to deliver on Google Cloud. The customer’s engineers stay on the keyboard, and the engagement worked only if they no longer need us when it ends.
• Authored The Agentic Manifesto, an operating model for building and running non-deterministic, autonomous AI systems.
• Advised Fortune 500 engineering teams on DORA and SRE practices, running workshops and strategic guidance for automotive, financial services, and retail organizations that measurably improved their delivery performance and reliability.
• Guided strategic customers into production agentic AI and grounded search, shaping their architecture and their technology strategy for the shift.
• Rebuilt the software development lifecycle at WhiteHat Security, increasing release frequency by 300% and moving the company to automated, continuous delivery.
• Helped establish Cloud Foundry as a leading cloud application platform through global advocacy, enterprise consulting, and open-source contribution.
• Sustained more than a decade in the open-source community by co-organizing technical conferences and publishing dozens of widely used libraries.

Employment History

Head of AI Infrastructure and Applied Engineering, Developer Relations

Google Cloud July 2026 - Present

AI Infrastructure covers GKE and the hardware beneath it: the accelerators, the orchestration, and the drivers that keep large training, fine-tuning, and inference jobs running. Applied Engineering is the Developer Relations program I started in 2023, where Google Cloud engineers co-engineer a mission-critical solution alongside a customer’s own team. Much of the work is helping teams get the most out of the world’s most capable AI hardware. Agents are arriving in production at real scale, and my teams build the foundations that let enterprises run them with confidence.

• Direct the developer-facing strategy for GKE and accelerator infrastructure, covering GPU and TPU orchestration for training, fine-tuning, and inference at scale.
• Own the Applied Engineering program in Developer Relations, where Google Cloud engineers co-engineer a mission-critical solution with a customer’s team on the customer’s project. It is not consulting and it is not sales: no statement of work, no quota. Self-sufficiency is the deliverable, and running inside a real production environment feeds product improvements, documentation, and samples back into the platform.
• Set direction for the governance, security, and performance work that gives enterprises a dependable foundation for running agents in production.
• Build and lead the two organizations, shaping hiring, technical direction, and the day-to-day judgment calls that keep both teams effective.

Lead Developer Advocate

Google Cloud April 2017 - July 2026

I advised Fortune 500 companies through the move to cloud-native and, later, AI-driven engineering, translating hard technologies into work their teams could actually ship. The role centered on DORA and SRE guidance, leading the early Applied Engineering work in Developer Relations to build production GenAI solutions, and serving as a technical voice at global conferences and for launches like the Gemini CLI.

• Shaped enterprise adoption of cloud and AI technologies by advising Fortune 500 companies on DORA, SRE, and modern DevOps, contributing to multi-million-dollar deals and significant expansions of Google Cloud usage.
• Delivered hundreds of technical presentations, workshops, and keynotes at conferences like Google Cloud Next and KubeCon, plus 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 worldwide, including an event at their headquarters that drew over 1,000 developers.
• Provided technical expertise for strategic product launches and keynotes, including Google Cloud Next and the Gemini CLI launch, making sure the messaging and demos landed with developers.
• Led multi-day, hands-on engagements with engineering teams at key customers to build solutions for conversational AI, platform modernization, and software supply-chain security.
• Mentored fellow advocates and helped hire and develop the Developer Relations team, carrying the culture and the internal knowledge-sharing that kept it strong.

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