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FULL-STACK ENGINEERING / TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP / AI WRANGLING

Matt Blum.

I build applications, connect systems, and help teams do their best work. Equal parts architecture, hands-on engineering, and care for the end-user experience.

Explore my experience ↓
ENGINEER, BUILDER + PROBLEM SOLVER.THOUGHTFULLY BUILT, END TO END
01

Approach

My work connects frontend development, backend services, and the infrastructure that keeps them running. I like owning projects that involve complex contexts and building systems that are maintainable, testable, and secure, centering usability for the end client.

I’m picky about how things are built. LLMs give us the ability to build faster, but the faster we move, the more code we generate, the more the process matters. Consistent engineering yields more reliable systems.

02

Experience

Post-LLM

Cisco

Mar 2023 — Present
CONTINUING ROLE

Security Engineering Technical Leader

cisco.com

My work has largely focused on building AI tooling and workflows to support and operate within FedRAMP environments. LLMs have changed the way I build, but not the way I think about engineering. Agents can write code much faster than I ever could, which means my job is now to ask the right questions and steer the ship.

  • Build operations tooling to support secure agentic AI access within restricted environments.
  • Develop workflows and remote agents with LangGraph and LangSmith; refine them to reduce token usage and capture institutional knowledge.
  • Automate week-over-week analysis of platform changes and report preparation for the FedRAMP change board.
  • Streamline deployment processes and manage AWS environments across multiple regions and federal security levels.
  • Coordinate with product and integration teams to maintain FedRAMP compliance and support ongoing operations.
  • Contribute to the AI task force, helping establish engineering patterns for developers and their AI agents.
  • Provide hands-on support for FedRAMP and commercial customers when the runbooks fall short.
  • Mentor engineers and review code for secure, maintainable, and well-tested solutions.
LangGraphLangSmithAgentic AIAWSFedRAMPClaudeCodexConductor

National Machine

Dec 2025 — Present

Owner · AI-guided product engineering

nationalmachine.io

Design, build, and ship native apps that solve everyday problems for the people who use them, directing LLM agents through the work and holding every change to strict performance and quality standards.

  • Ship a family of native products for macOS, iOS, and the web, including Vireo (private email client), Shrike (photo culling and organization), Bellbird (tuner and metronome), and Wren (household shopping list).
  • Guide LLM development rather than delegate it, with scoped briefs, architecture rules the agents must follow, and review of every change before it ships.
  • Enforce performance budgets in CI so the interface stays instant on large real-world libraries; budgets are tightened, never loosened to make a build pass.
  • Hold AI-written code to the same bar as hand-written code, with deterministic tests, test suites run against real-world data, and a staging environment that gates each release.
  • Start from the user’s problem, such as helping working photographers cull a full wedding quickly, and refine each release against real use.
  • Run the whole delivery path, from CI and signed, notarized releases to the self-hosted Kubernetes platform behind the apps.
SwiftSwiftUITypeScriptPostgreSQLKubernetesLLM agents

Pre-LLM

Cisco

Mar 2023 — Present
CURRENT CISCO ROLE · EARLIER CHAPTER

Security Engineering Technical Leader

cisco.com

Built and operated secure infrastructure for the Cisco Firewall Management platform, from federal environment rollouts to full-stack compliance.

  • Contributed to the platform’s FedRAMP rollout and deployed IL2 and IL5 environments.
  • Led redevelopment of the Secure Device Connector, an on-premises connector for Cisco ASAs.
  • Managed weekly deployments to commercial and FedRAMP environments as part of the operations team.
  • Created Blumfront, a CloudFront replacement built for AWS GovCloud.
  • Ensured FIPS compliance across the full stack, from build tools to Java microservices and Node.js services.
FedRAMPAWS GovCloudFIPSJavaNode.js

Resourcely

Jul 2022 — Jan 2023

Senior Frontend Engineer

Frontend and delivery engineering at an early-stage startup, building the product interface and the systems that ship it.

  • Built a high-performance frontend with React and TypeScript.
  • Integrated multiple disparate backend systems behind a single product experience.
  • Solved complex technical problems at startup pace, moving quickly from requirements to shipped work.
  • Built the deployment system on Nx, giving the codebase a structured, scoped monorepo.
ReactTypeScriptNx

Cisco

Jan 2020 — Jun 2022

Technical Lead

cisco.com

Full-stack engineering across teams and business units, building and connecting enterprise security products.

  • Led the frontend and backend integration of SecureX into Cisco Defense Orchestrator, coordinating development, cross-team collaboration, and QA.
  • Architected NestJS microservices and an Nx monorepo for TypeScript Lambda functions; established development patterns, code ownership, and CI/CD.
  • Helped design SNS/SQS communication between services and the existing monolith. Moved suitable workloads into Docker and AWS Fargate.
  • Mentored engineers and reviewed Angular and Node applications across multiple teams.
TypeScriptAngularNestJSNxAWS

National Machine

Jul 2015 — Jan 2020

Owner · Full Stack Developer + Systems Administrator

nationalmachine.io

Built client applications and the infrastructure behind them, from user experience and APIs to networks, monitoring, and delivery.

  • Built single-page applications, REST APIs, and microservices for onboarding, content management, and email marketing.
  • Designed relational databases and integrated Stripe, Mailchimp, and custom OAuth services.
  • Managed infrastructure across three locations, eight hosts, and 50 virtual machines, including routing, firewalls, redundancy, and backups.
  • Automated configuration with Puppet and deployments with Jenkins, CircleCI, and GitLab; implemented monitoring and incident reporting.
AngularNode.jsLaravelPostgreSQLProxmoxDocker

Revel Health

Mar 2018 — Mar 2019

Senior Full Stack Engineer

Led small teams building Angular and Node applications, with work spanning frontend architecture, services, and DevOps.

  • Consolidated related UIs into an Nx monorepo to improve reuse and testing across distributed teams.
  • Replaced manual UI deployments with continuous delivery and brought integration and end-to-end tests into the monorepo.
  • Built real-time messaging with Node, Pusher, and RabbitMQ; implemented Auth0 login, MFA, and client-specific rules.
AngularNxNode.jsRabbitMQAuth0

Livefront

Mar 2018 — Jan 2019

Senior Frontend Engineer

livefront.com

Sole frontend developer for an education product, partnering with client designers and developers to bring the experience to life.

  • Built an Angular application with comprehensive tests and documentation, integrating Rails services and MySQL.
  • Implemented streaming video, cue points, timeline events, and state management within an embedded application.
AngularRxJSReduxNx

Plotly

Jan 2016 — Nov 2017

Full Stack Developer

plotly.com

Built supporting products for Plotly’s SaaS business, including event management, customer support, and PLOTCON.

  • Partnered with sales, marketing, and engineering to turn requirements into three Angular applications.
  • Built a Laravel support payment gateway and custom OAuth integration with Plotly’s existing user database.
AngularLaravelOAuth
03

The toolkit

01

AI tooling

Claude Code / Codex / LangGraph / LangSmith / MCP servers / Agent workflows / Guided LLM development

02

Web applications

TypeScript / JavaScript / Angular / NgRx / RxJS / Node.js / NestJS / Laravel

03

Native applications

Swift / SwiftUI / macOS / iOS

04

Architecture + delivery

Nx monorepos / Microservices / REST APIs / CI/CD / Cypress / Git / Docker

05

Cloud + infrastructure

AWS / Lambda / Fargate / S3 / DynamoDB / Linux / Proxmox / Puppet / Networking

06

Data + communication

PostgreSQL / MySQL / MongoDB / Redis / RabbitMQ / SNS + SQS / Socket.io

04

Foundations

St. John’s University

BA · Psychology, Music + Spanish

2000 — 2004

Current projects

Vireo · Private email client for macOS
Shrike · Photo culling for macOS
Bellbird · Tuner and metronome for Mac and iOS
Wren · Shopping lists for iOS and the web