Technical operations · Education · AI

Making complex technology work for people.

I'm Cody McDonald, a technical operations and education leader with a background in cloud infrastructure, technical enablement, and aviation. I build technical education programs and operational systems that shorten ramp time, improve engineering workflows, and help teams perform at scale.

Explore my work Get in touch
01 / About

An educator's mindset.
An engineer's curiosity.

My career has taken me from flying in the clouds to working in them. What began in aviation evolved into a career in cloud infrastructure, technical education and operations. Across both industries, I’ve focused on the same fundamental challenge: making complex systems easier to understand, operate and improve.

Outside my day-to-day work, I build and maintain my own Linux infrastructure, websites, and VPN, and experiment with Python-based machine learning and local AI models.

02 / Experience

Where I've made an impact.

A career spanning technical operations, infrastructure, education, and team leadership.

Abridge

Operations Manager, Technical Support · 2025–present

Lead a specialized team of four Technical Support Specialists who investigate and resolve complex customer issues beyond frontline Support, protecting Engineering capacity for product development.

  • Achieved 74% engineering deflection in the team’s first month, reaching a six-month goal five months early and sustaining approximately 73% across more than 1,000 tickets.
  • Drive operational improvements through AI-powered reporting with Claude Tasks, technical enablement, and data-driven collaboration with Engineering.

1Password

Manager, CX TechOps · 2023–2025

Led customer experience infrastructure and automation across support systems, analytics, and AI-powered workflows.

  • Improved AI chatbot responses and conversational workflows.
  • Developed reporting and metrics pipelines to support operational decisions.
  • Built technical tooling and enablement systems for customer-facing teams.

LaunchDarkly

Team Lead, Technical Curriculum Developer · 2022–2023

Took LaunchDarkly’s customer-facing academy from concept to launch in just a few months, establishing a dedicated destination for technical product education.

  • Built the academy from the ground up and developed structured learning resources that helped customers understand product capabilities and use the platform independently.
  • Partnered with Engineering and Customer Experience to align education with product functionality and real customer needs.
  • Created internal technical training and documentation to help customer-facing teams support the product effectively.

Linode / Akamai

Infrastructure, CX Operations & Learning Leadership · 2014–2022

Progressed from systems administration to leading technical learning and development programs.

  • Built onboarding and enablement programs covering Linux, Python, and observability.
  • Reduced time to productivity from 90 days to under three weeks through tailored training.
  • Led support training and infrastructure improvement initiatives as the organization scaled.
03 / Selected impact

Building capabilities. Delivering results.

Selected examples of turning complex technical and organizational problems into measurable improvements.

01 / TECHNICAL OPERATIONS · ABRIDGE

Building a team that solves problems before they reach Engineering

74% first-month deflection · Six-month goal achieved five months early

Built and developed a team of Technical Support Specialists that kept 74% of technical tickets from escalating to Engineering in its first month. Sustained approximately 73% deflection across more than 1,000 tickets, allowing Engineering to focus on product development.

Team building · Technical enablement · Measurable impact
02 / CUSTOMER EDUCATION · LAUNCHDARKLY

Built a customer-facing academy from scratch

From concept to customer academy in just a few months

Owned the academy initiative from concept through launch in just a few months, turning complex product capabilities into structured, customer-facing technical education. Partnered with Engineering and Customer Experience to keep the learning experience grounded in product functionality and customer needs.

Academy development · Technical curriculum · Customer education
03 / TECHNICAL EDUCATION · LINODE / AKAMAI

Cutting the time it takes engineers to become effective

90 days → under three weeks to productivity

Designed tailored enablement paths for engineering and infrastructure teams, translating technical subjects such as Linux, Python, and observability into structured learning that accelerated the transition to independent work.

Curriculum strategy · Technical enablement · Scale
04 / ENGINEERING OPERATIONS · ABRIDGE

Finding the ownership gap behind stalled escalations

200+ escalations analyzed · 6× higher untouched rate

Reviewed the engineering escalation workflow after its move from Slack to Linear. Identified unroutable escalations with no assigned owner as a key failure point, quantified the impact, and presented targeted process improvements to Engineering.

Root-cause analysis · Cross-functional leadership · Process design
05 / AI & AUTOMATION · ABRIDGE

Replacing manual reporting with an operational system

Daily metrics · Automated weekly leadership recaps

Built the team's first support metrics system using Claude Tasks, Slack, Linear, and Notion. Automated data collection and reporting for escalation volume, deflection, routing, and SLA breaches so leaders could review performance without assembling reports by hand.

Claude Tasks · Systems integration · Operational analytics
04 / Technical practice

Hands-on, beyond the day job.

I stay close to the technology by building and maintaining the systems I use.

Self-hosted infrastructure & applied AI

Host and maintain my own websites, VPN, and Linux infrastructure. Use Proxmox and containerized services to manage workloads, with hands-on responsibility for networking, DNS, system administration, and troubleshooting.

  • Developed a Python-based snake identification app using an image classifier trained or fine-tuned on photographs I collected and labeled.
  • Experiment with local AI models, image generation, and GPU acceleration to understand inference performance and infrastructure trade-offs.
05 / Contact

Let's connect.

Interested in technical education, engineering operations, or building more effective systems? I'd welcome a conversation.

Contact me