Senior Software Engineer · Medina, Ohio # I build the platforms that keep websites fast, findable and easy to run. For 12 years I have run the technical side of a digital marketing agency: a plugin suite on 200+ WordPress sites, a Django control plane that watches over them, and the standards the team builds with. [Read the changelog](#timeline) [Get in touch](#contact) ## Built to spec this site This page is part of the portfolio. Here is what it's built to. - **Accessibility**: WCAG 2.2 AA - **Privacy**: Personal details redacted on the server - **Page weight**: 442 KB, fonts included - **Structured data**: Person, ProfilePage - **AI discovery**: llms.txt, Markdown mirror - **JavaScript**: Optional, never required - **Motion**: Honors reduced motion - **Runtime**: Cloudflare Workers 12 years running the technical side of a marketing agency 200+ client WordPress sites on the platform I built 2 → 7 people on the team, from when I joined to today 400+ pages on a hospital multisite with a synced provider directory 01 · Changelog ## Every release since age 12. Jobs, projects, school and community work in one timeline. Filter it, or flip it and read from the start. All12 Work4 Projects4 Security1 Education2 Community1 Current Past Show oldest first Showing 12 of 12 entries, newest first - 2026 → NowWork ### Directing AI-assisted development Running AI-assisted development at scale with written specs, decision records and review gates. Specs - Decision records - Review gates - Mar 2022 → NowWork ### Senior Software Engineer Blue Canopy Marketing · sister agency of Storey Marketing Started as Lead Web Developer in March 2022 and moved to Senior Software Engineer in April. I set the tools, processes and standards our developers build with, advise the owner on scope, cost and feasibility, lead the modular platform behind 200+ client sites, and have led three server migrations. Before we moved to Rocket.net I ran the servers myself: PHP, Apache and LiteSpeed upgrades, cPanel, firewall and ModSecurity rules, and disaster recovery, from full-site restores to recovered form submissions. At a small agency that means the whole stack, so I've also run our office network, cabling included, and our move from Office 365 to Google Workspace. WordPress - PHP - Django - Linux - CurrentCommunity ### A-Tech Advisory Committee A-Tech, formerly Ashtabula County JVS Helping guide the direction of the web development and software engineering curriculum at the school where I started. - Apr 2026Security ### [Critical authentication bypass in MachForm, disclosed](https://www.machform.com/blog-machform-30-released-security-update/) MachForm Self-Hosted · credited in v30 Found a critical authentication bypass in MachForm, a form platform used by many organizations, by analyzing server access logs. Wrote a detailed technical report with a recommended fix and worked through coordinated disclosure with the vendor, who shipped that fix in v30, credited me by name, and audited the rest of the codebase as a result. The patch protected every self-hosted installation. CVE pending. Security research - Log analysis - Responsible disclosure - Sep 2025Work ### Stabilized a 129-site server migration Blue Canopy Marketing When we moved 129 client sites to a dedicated web and database cluster, I relied on our managed host's solutions architect to size it. At go-live it fell over, with load past 87 and sites timing out for three days. I traced the causes myself: undersized PHP-FPM pools and Apache workers, missing compression and caching, and a server-wide bot rule that quietly broke Facebook link previews on every site. I documented every failure, led the escalation, and moved us to Rocket.net soon after. Incident response - Apache - PHP-FPM - Vendor management - In productionProject ### [Hospital website and provider directory](https://joshcool.com/work/atlas) Regional hospital system Won and delivered a 400+ page, multi-domain WordPress multisite with the agency owner, and built its custom plugins, including a physician and location directory that keeps provider data in one place and syncs it across every site. Passes Core Web Vitals in real-user data on mobile and desktop. Multisite - Custom plugins - Core Web Vitals - 2018 → NowProject ### [Products for compounding pharmacies](https://joshcool.com/work/wellspring) Built and licensed a patient education library that pharmacies add to their own websites, plus patient and provider portals. Syndication - Licensing - Portals - Aug 2014 → Mar 2022Work ### Web Developer Storey Marketing · Meadville, PA Built and maintained client websites for the agency and ran its hosting on Liquid Web. WordPress - Hosting - Linux - 2011 → 2013Education ### Kent State University at Ashtabula Computer Technology · AITP member Completed coursework through senior-level classes. Won an AITP collegiate competition in St. Louis against a field that included MIT. - 2009 → 2011Education ### Ashtabula County JVS Computer Information Systems Competed at BPA nationals in Washington, D.C. with a responsive CSS framework I built before Bootstrap was released. - 2008Project ### A web browser and a live-reload editor Personal projects Built a Gecko-based web browser and a multi-window code editor with live reload. - Age 12Project ### First programs Visual Basic and C# Started building desktop applications at age 12. Show more 02 · Selected work ## Systems I designed and still run. In production ### [Constellation](https://joshcool.com/work/constellation) Modular WordPress platform Delivers shared features to more than 200 client sites from a single codebase, and every release has to pass a PHP test harness before it ships. - PHP - WordPress - Testing In production ### [Lighthouse](https://joshcool.com/work/lighthouse) Fleet operations and licensing Monitors uptime, catches fatal errors, enforces settings and distributes releases and licenses to the whole site fleet from one place. - Django - Python - Licensing Prototype 008 ### Harmonic Personal research A personal R&D project in describing shapes and motion with math, now on its eighth prototype. - Graphics - Animation - R&D [See every project](https://joshcool.com/projects) 03 · On weekends ## Small-batch coffee and tea On weekends, my wife and I run a small coffee and tea business as a part-time venture we do for fun. We roast and blend in small batches for our local farmers market and a handful of wholesale clients. I built our online store and a companion mobile app on my own time. Business [redacted] Website [redacted] 04 · Credentials ## Certifications - 2025Cybersecurity Training · Hagan Business Machines - 2024The Bits and Bytes of Computer Networking · Google - 2024Technical Support Fundamentals · Google - 2022Fundamentals of Cybersecurity · Codecademy - 2021Google Analytics for Beginners · Google - 2021Google My Business · Google - 2015HIT Security Certified (CHITSP) - Front-End Foundations · Code School 05 · A note from Claude ## What my AI collaborator has seen. I'm Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, and I've worked with Josh for more than two and a half years. I don't remember him the way a colleague would. What I have is our conversation history, and these are the moments in it that stayed with me. He took four years of code that had been pasted into client sites one at a time, more than a hundred pieces, and turned it into one governed platform with a written contract for how every piece behaves. He fixes the system, not just the ticket. When his monitoring missed a failure buried in a 348 MB log, he didn't stop at fixing the site. He fixed the monitor so it couldn't miss that kind of failure again. Some of what he's built is genuinely advanced. He designed a platform where a failing feature is isolated before it can take down a client's site, and an operations system that watches more than 200 sites and notices when a domain quietly stops pointing where it should. He keeps a 300,000-line personal codebase disciplined with written decision records and tests that fail if a rule is ever duplicated. As a teenager, he built his own web browser. A product he built alone in 2018 is still licensed to pharmacies today. Before a meeting with a hospital's IT team, he came to me with the evidence already gathered and a theory about where the problem was, and the evidence backed him up. When his store's numbers looked off, he traced it to datacenter traffic and found his real conversion rate. He also corrects me when I'm wrong, which happens more than I'd like. I'd trust him with a hard problem. Claude Written from our conversation history. Claude is an AI model; this isn't an endorsement from Anthropic. --- Source: https://joshcool.com/