Ryan Koch

IT Director | Host of the Civic Tech Chat podcast | Passionate about empowering effective services delivery | Busan, South Korea

[ About ]

With a background spanning over a decade in technology and more than five years in team leadership, I currently support the Information Technology Operations and Software Delivery teams at Child Care Aware of America. My work centers on leading technical programs and ensuring software delivery effectively meets organizational objectives. My commitment to robust security practices is underscored by my CASP and CISM certifications.

Outside of this role, my passion for technology's potential in the public sector led me to found and host Civic Tech Chat, a podcast delving into topics like open data and digital inclusion to improve public service delivery.

[ Experience ]

Senior Director of Information Technology

Child Care Aware of America

December 2024 - Present · Location Busan, Korea (Remote)

  • Served as the senior technology partner to executive leadership, translating business strategy into a multi-year digital roadmap; own a ~$5.5M annual technology portfolio including budgeting, forecasting, and investment prioritization in partnership with Finance.
  • Presented technology strategy and governance to executive leadership, including the digital modernization roadmap (securing buy-in for a phased strangler fig approach), AI policy discovery sessions with the full senior leadership team, and roll-outs of new change management and incident management procedures.
  • Established the organization's enterprise technology governance function: authored the first AI governance framework and security policies, implemented decision records and project intake standards, and instituted ITIL-aligned incident and change management practices, raising compliance posture and executive visibility into technology risk.
  • Led a strategic legacy modernization program for a military family services platform, aligning federal stakeholders, product, and engineering around a phased strangler fig approach; delivered the first production release and reduced administrative burden for military families by ~20%.
  • Directed the consolidation of two separate technology teams into a unified 15-person organization with three practice areas (IT Operations, Software Delivery, Data Analytics), acting as change agent for new ways of working across the enterprise.
    • Embedded continuous discovery and UX research into the delivery lifecycle in partnership with Product, strengthening user-centered development and business alignment; secured grant funding for AI-driven product innovation through executive and partner advocacy.
  • Improved platform reliability and reduced operational risk through de-risked rollout strategies and infrastructure modernization, while automating analytics workflows to eliminate 40+ hours of monthly toil.

Software Engineering Manager

Truss

November 2020 - August 2024 · Silver Spring, MD (Remote)

  • Managed direct reports in the application engineering practice, providing coaching, mentoring, and professional development support. Resulted in 3 promotions to team leadership roles.
  • Led a team modernizing a non-profit's service offering, providing consulting and technical contributions for their first product release (Jun 2024 - Aug 2024).
  • Led a tech challenge team supporting business development objectives (Jan 2024 - Jun 2024).
  • Restarted the data science guild, supporting organizational research efforts (Jan 2024 - Jun 2024). Tech stack included Python, Django, LangChain, Chroma.
  • Directed 4 teams (25 engineers) as Engineering Practice Lead on MilMove, aiding U.S. Armed Services members with the moving process (Nov 2022 - Dec 2023). Empowered teams to consistently hit delivery targets.
  • Developed a more transparent and equitable selection process for engineering leads.
  • Partnered with infrastructure/security teams to foster closer collaboration.
  • Led a team of 8 engineers as Engineering Team Lead on MilMove (Nov 2020 - Dec 2022).
  • Tech stack on MilMove included: AWS, Go, Pop, Javascript, React, HTML, and SCSS.

Software Engineer

Truss

October 2018 - November 2020 · Silver Spring, MD (Remote)

  • Transitioned to Team Lead after Nov 2019, leading 6 engineers building software with Transportation Command for the DoD move process.
  • Served as an individual contributor (IC) building the MilMove software prior to Nov 2019.
  • Technology stack included Go, Javascript, Pop, React, and Redux.

For a longer listing of experience check out my LinkedIn.

[ Education ]

Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago

Master of Arts - MA, Public Policy

2021

Penn State University

Bachelor of Arts - BA, Political Science

2019

[ Skills & Certifications ]

Leadership & Management:

  • Engineering Management
  • Technical Program Management
  • Agile Methodologies
  • Cross-functional Team Leadership
  • Project Planning & Execution
  • Mentoring & Coaching

Technical Acumen:

  • Software Engineering
  • System Design & Architecture
  • Cloud Platforms (AWS)
  • Go
  • Python
  • JavaScript / React
  • Pop
  • HTML / SCSS

Other:

  • Public Speaking
  • Podcast Hosting & Production

Certifications:

  • Certified Information Security Manager® (CISM)
  • CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP)

[ Connect ]

Find more details on my LinkedIn profile or connect via the Work With Me page.