Scaling Third-Party Risk Assessment at CyberGRX

Overview

CyberGRX (now ProcessUnity) is the world's first and largest collaborative risk exchange. The platform ingests third-party risk data from thousands of vendors to deliver cyber risk intelligence to the world's leading brands.

From 2019 to 2022, I served as a senior full-stack engineer, team lead, and ultimately a staff engineer. I worked across React, TypeScript, GraphQL, Python, and Node.js, leading cross-functional initiatives, mentoring engineers, and collaborating with DevOps and QA to scale performance, reduce complexity, and elevate the developer experience.

Key Contributions

🧵 GraphQL, TypeScript & React Subject Matter Expert

  • Became the organization-wide go-to for GraphQL schema design, React architecture, and TypeScript best practices
  • Led development standards and reusable component libraries across multiple teams
  • Mentored engineers through pairing sessions, tech talks, and deep dives on performance and architecture
  • Codified frontend architecture and drove design language consistency across pods

"A great communicator of best practices and patterns. Will is always one step ahead, taking us where we want to go on both a business level and in a technical sense." — Engineering Peer, 360 Feedback

🧪 Major Product Deliverables

  • Led the full rewrite of the company's largest and most critical feature, the Assessment Tool v2.0, used to gather cyber risk data from thousands of third parties
    → Reduced the codebase size from 80,000 to 5,000 lines (93% reduction), while increasing feature efficacy, maintainability, and extensibility
    → Drove a bottom-up re-architecture across both frontend and backend using GraphQL, React, and TypeScript
  • Refactored legacy data flows and component hierarchies to align with domain-driven design and modern GraphQL patterns
  • Implemented performance improvements and scalable data-fetching strategies
  • Collaborated across design, security, and product to align feature development with customer use cases and compliance needs

"Will regularly goes above and beyond expectations… a constructive leader within the engineering team as well as a strong partner to product." — Product Peer, 360 Feedback

🧠 Engineering Process Improvements

  • Spearheaded an org-wide RFC process to encourage technical proposals and architecture discussions across distributed teams
  • Authored internal documentation on GraphQL, component design, and backend schema best practices
  • Introduced tooling and CI linting for consistent code quality, including custom devtools and CLI integrations
  • Partnered with principal engineers to define core engineering principles and tech debt prioritization workflows

"Helped implement and mature the RFC process… codifying open communication and collaborative decision-making." — Manager Feedback

👩‍💻 Remote Team Leadership

  • Managed distributed pods of 3–5 full-time engineers, plus offshore contractors in the US, Ukraine, and India
  • Worked closely with cross-functional partners in design, product, DevOps, and cybersecurity
  • Advocated for async-first collaboration, documentation-driven development, and peer mentorship in remote environments

"Regardless of the role he is playing… Will finds a way to provide leadership and direction." — Peer, 360 Feedback

đź‘Ą Mentorship & Cross-Team Impact

  • Mentored junior and mid-level engineers across teams, leading to faster onboarding and cross-functional productivity
  • Led PR reviews, pairing sessions, and internal workshops on GraphQL performance, React state management, and frontend infrastructure
  • Proactively resolved platform-wide bugs—whether in Docker configs, Python resolver logic, or frontend regressions
  • Known for leveling up engineers across frontend and backend disciplines

"Will is awesome to work with! Can't wait to learn more from him as both an engineer and leader." — Engineering Peer

"Will's skills clearly exceed his specific role… a huge asset not just to the engineering org but the company as a whole." — Peer Feedback

Stack & Technologies

Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Cypher
Frontend: React, Redux, Apollo Client, TypeScript
Backend: GraphQL, Node.js, Prisma, HapiJS
Databases: PostgreSQL, Neo4j
DevOps: Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, AWS CodeBuild
Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, OpenTelemetry
CI/CD & Tooling: GitHub, Pre-commit Hooks, Custom CLI Tools
Messaging: RabbitMQ
Environments: Linux, AWS

Outcomes & Metrics

  • 🏆 3+ years at CyberGRX, promoted twice into Staff Engineering role
  • ⚡ Reduced codebase by 93% (80k → 5k LOC) through complete rewrite of a core feature
  • 🚀 Improved platform performance, developer velocity, and product quality
  • 🧑‍🏫 Mentored 10+ engineers and improved cross-team technical alignment
  • đź’¬ Trusted as an organizational SME: "You were hungry for leadership opportunities and focused on making the engineering org and CyberGRX better overall." — Manager Feedback
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