Chelsea Kelly-Reif

Senior Director of Engineering

Chelsea Kelly-Reif

I build public-interest technology in workforce and health that people can trust, and the teams that sustain it.

For a decade I've built secure, accessible public services, first inside government and then as a partner to it.

Davis, California · Remote / Hybrid

About

I'm a Senior Director of Engineering at Coforma, an 8(a)/SDVOSB civic-technology firm. I lead a 53-person engineering organization, behind more than $100M in awarded federal contracts, and own the company-wide healthcare portfolio. As engineering business-development lead I helped win $74M in a single year at better than a 70% rate. Through a stretch of company-wide change my teams stayed and grew, and eight engineers moved up into senior and leadership roles. I still own architecture end to end.

I've been the engineering lead and principal engineer for MyCareer.NJ since day one. It's New Jersey's statewide workforce platform, used by 1.7 million residents, and the state's first major workforce modernization in over twenty years. The platform is a connected, fully bilingual suite: career-change recommendations, a 3,800-program training explorer, industry pathways, a statewide job board, and support services. Fast Company, the Harvard Kennedy School's Project on Workforce, and the Royal Statistical Society have all covered it. I took it from a 400-file prototype to a roughly 330,000-line production system, and I designed and built its six-branch applied-AI portfolio on AWS Bedrock myself, including a grounded proof-of-concept career coach that can't invent a program, a price, or a promise. A fifty-state scan turned up no equivalent.

On the health side, my teams own the CMS systems states use to report Medicaid and CHIP data, which cover programs serving tens of millions of beneficiaries, and I lead Coforma's specialization in FHIR and health-data interoperability. The health and workforce work share one throughline: standards-based, open data. CTDL for credentials, FHIR for health, so public-sector data stays comparable and portable instead of trapped in silos. I came up inside California state government, at CDSS, the Energy Commission, and the CPUC, building for residents before I ever did it as a vendor. That public-servant lens still drives how I work.

What I'm looking for

I'm an engineering leader and people manager. I've spent a decade building public-interest technology: today I lead a 53-person organization behind more than $100M in federal health contracts, and before that I architected California's energy, utilities, and social-services systems. Here's the work I want next, and the range I'm open to.

The role

  • Engineering people-management leadership: VP, Head of Engineering, Director, or Senior/Principal Engineering Manager. I lead and grow engineers, and I stay close to the architecture.
  • Open to lateral moves, even a slight step down in title or scope. The non-negotiable is that the role is engineering people management and leadership. That's the work I'm best at and care most about.

Where I want to do it

  • Sustainability, energy, climate, utilities. I built California's energy-data and utilities-regulation platforms (the CEC's AWS Data Submission Portal, the MAEDbS appliance-efficiency system, the CPUC's carrier and telecom-access portals), and I'd love to get back to that work.
  • Public health, Medicaid, and health-data interoperability: FHIR, the CMS MDCT and Medicaid Drug Programs portfolios, and systems serving tens of millions of beneficiaries.
  • Civic tech, workforce, and economic mobility. Statewide platforms like MyCareer.NJ.gov that residents actually rely on, plus grounded, responsible AI in public services.
  • Public safety and social services. The government systems I built at CDSS that people genuinely depend on: caregiver registries, criminal background checks, benefits delivery.

If your mission lives in any of these areas, or somewhere adjacent, and you want an engineering leader who grows people and stays close to the work, I'd like to talk.

Get in touch

Experience

  1. Apr 2025 – Present

    Remote

    Senior Director of Engineering

    at Coforma

    I lead a 53-person engineering organization (grown from 39, with 22 direct reports ranging from Directors to mid-level ICs) and own Coforma's company-wide healthcare engineering portfolio and strategy. I held onto the team and grew it through a stretch of company-wide turbulence; the unusually high retention came from leading with trust, psychological safety, and clear ownership. I promoted 9 engineers into senior and leadership roles, 4 of them to Director or Principal.

    As Engineering Business Development lead, I helped win $74M in 2024 business development at better than a 70% win rate across the VA, CMS, and IRS, authoring Shipley-method technical volumes and solution architectures on IDIQs including GSA OASIS and the VA's CEDAR and SPRUCE. I carry delivery responsibility behind more than $100M in prime federal contracts awarded.

    My teams own engineering, federal compliance, and delivery for the CMS MDCT suite: the React/TypeScript serverless applications on AWS that states and territories use to report Medicaid and CHIP data to CMS (enrollment, CHIP coverage, managed care, Money Follows the Person, quality measures, and home- and community-based services). They underpin federal oversight of programs serving tens of millions of beneficiaries. In 2026 so far the team has merged 400 PRs, including a new Medicaid reporting app taken from zero to production in about 14 weeks, alongside portfolio-wide React 19, security, and accessibility work.

    I also hold portfolio oversight for the CMS Medicaid Drug Programs system behind the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program (Coforma prime; a delivery partner leads day-to-day engineering), and I lead the firm's specialization in FHIR and health-data interoperability.

    My flagship engineering work, MyCareer.NJ.gov and its grounded AI portfolio, spans my full Coforma tenure (below).

  2. Mar 2023 – Apr 2025

    Remote

    Director of Engineering

    at Coforma

    Grew from principal engineer into engineering director while staying the primary engineer on MyCareer.NJ.gov. As the organization more than doubled, I set the delivery practices, ownership models, and technical standards that now span our healthcare and workforce portfolios, and built the hiring, mentoring, and promotion foundation that later scaled to a 53-person org.

  3. Sep 2022 – Mar 2023

    Remote

    Principal Software Engineer

    at Coforma

    Joined as principal engineer on MyCareer.NJ.gov, owning full-stack architecture end to end, from the PostgreSQL schema and FastAPI recommendation engine to the React/Next.js front end and CI/CD, and set the engineering standards the platform still runs on.

  4. Jun 2022 – Sep 2022

    Career break

    at Bereavement

    Stepped back from full-time work to focus on family and my full-time professional education, caring for my mother in her final months. She was an enormous inspiration to my career, and she made all of this possible.

    In memory of Joyce Kelly-Reif (opens in a new tab)

  5. Apr 2022 – May 2022

    Berkeley, California · Hybrid

    Application Development Lead

    at University of California, Berkeley, School of Education

    Led development of the 21CSLA HUB, the equity-focused digital platform for the 21st Century California School Leadership Academy (21CSLA). The State Center is housed at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education, in partnership with UCLA's School of Education & Information Studies and the California Subject Matter Project. 21CSLA is a ~$12–13M multi-year California Department of Education initiative, the state's first statewide leadership academy in over 20 years, delivering no-cost, equity-centered professional learning to thousands of public-school leaders across seven regional academies. The focus was explicit: better outcomes for English learners, students with disabilities, low-income students, and other historically marginalized students. The HUB put that learning, coaching, and resources within reach of district, site, and teacher leaders across California, and supported the academy's part in the state's Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) rollout.

  6. Aug 2021 – Apr 2022

    Sacramento, California · Remote

    Lead Software Engineer

    at California Energy Commission

    Led cloud modernization of California's energy-data infrastructure across two tenures (around a 2021 engagement at the CPUC). I architected and shipped the Energy Commission's Data Submission Portal, a secure cloud-based (AWS) platform for submitting regulatory data to the commission, engineering its petroleum-industry (PIIRA) and quarterly fuel-and-energy (QFER) reporting, built and ready at launch. The data it carries underpins California's statewide energy-demand forecasts and the Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR). After my tenure the commission scaled the platform agency-wide and later extended it to residential solar-permit (SB 379) reporting.

    Maintained and operated the Modernized Appliance Efficiency Database System (MAEDbS), the statewide certification system of record for California's Title 20 appliance-efficiency program, whose standards save consumers roughly $14.7B a year. Manufacturers, third-party labs, and retailers rely on it to verify which products are legal to sell in California. I kept it running reliably, supported certification submitters, and protected data integrity.

    Built ETL pipelines and policy-facing analytics dashboards for statewide energy data, and drove the commission's move to the cloud, building migration consensus across petroleum operators, power-plant operators, and commission leaders.

  7. Feb 2021 – Aug 2021

    Sacramento, California · Remote

    Principal Software Architect

    at California Public Utilities Commission

    Set org-wide architecture standards balancing innovation, compliance, and budget, and directed two statewide Salesforce/AWS platforms. The Transportation Carrier Portal (TCPortal, built on Salesforce/AWS/Snowflake) is the CPUC's online licensing system, launched in June 2021 during my engagement. Charter-party passenger carriers across the state (TCP: limousines, charter buses, sightseeing operators) use it to apply for and manage operating permits and certificates and to update driver and equipment records in real time.

    I also architected the Electronic Claim and Application Portal (eCAP), a Salesforce-based interface to submit, track, review, and resolve claims for the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program (DDTP), and, under the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), for broadband grantees submitting payment requests. The CPUC launched it in 2023, after my tenure, replacing paper-based submissions.

  8. Feb 2019 – Feb 2021

    Sacramento, California · On-site

    Lead Software Engineer

    at California Energy Commission

  9. Oct 2016 – Feb 2019

    Sacramento, California · On-site

    Software Engineer

    at California Department of Social Services

    Built out and operated a legislatively mandated public-safety platform: California's public Home Care Aide Registry, under the Home Care Services Consumer Protection Act (AB 1217, operative 2016). I joined shortly after its initial registration-and-search launch to build the renewal system and own ongoing maintenance and operations. Families can verify the registration and background-check status of 170,000+ registered caregivers by name and HCA ID before hiring (ASP.NET / SQL Server, two-factor auth, DOJ/FBI Live Scan integration, PII protection, online fee payment).

    Engineered enhancements to the legacy .NET desktop application Caregiver Background Check Bureau analysts used to process California DOJ and FBI fingerprint-based criminal background checks. It handled state and federal RAP sheets, Child Abuse Central Index (CACI) results, criminal-record clearances and exemptions, and subsequent-arrest (“rap-back”) notifications, for people working in or around licensed care facilities. CDSS later replaced this legacy system with the vendor-built “Guardian” solution (2021).

    Built the PCI DSS-compliant Community Care Licensing fee-payment portal where 140,000+ licensed facilities (child care, adult/senior, and residential care) pay annual fees, bridging a secure modern web interface to a legacy Natural/ADABAS mainframe.

    Across the broader CHHS portfolio I worked on several systems. I helped build the Legislative Analysis System (LAS, ASP.NET MVC / Angular), used by analysts across the California Health & Human Services Agency to track the bills and regulations affecting county-administered programs. I contributed to the OCAP State Children's Trust Fund donations portal, Independent Adoptions, and Refugee Resettlement. I administered web-portal and ActiveBatch scheduling that automates JCL batch runs across Windows servers and Natural/ADABAS mainframes for WIC and TANF county distributions, and delivered Power BI analytics for CalFresh analysts.

Skills

  • Engineering leadership

    • Org design & scaling (39→53)
    • People management (22 reports)
    • Hiring, mentoring & promotion
    • Trust-based, trauma-informed leadership
    • Retention through change
    • Federal delivery ownership

  • Federal business development

    • Shipley-method volumes
    • Solution architecture
    • IDIQs: GSA OASIS, VA CEDAR/SPRUCE
    • Capture & proposals
    • ATO delivery

  • Languages

    • TypeScript
    • JavaScript
    • Python
    • C#
    • SQL
    • Java

  • Frameworks & web

    • React / Next.js
    • Node / Express
    • FastAPI
    • Flask
    • Django
    • .NET Core / ASP.NET MVC
    • REST
    • GraphQL
    • Server-Sent Events

  • Cloud & DevOps

    • AWS: Lambda, DynamoDB, Cognito, Bedrock, S3/CloudFront, KMS, WAF
    • GCP
    • Azure
    • Terraform
    • AWS CDK
    • Docker
    • CI/CD: GitHub Actions, CircleCI
    • PM2

  • Data, AI & ML

    • PostgreSQL / Aurora (pgvector)
    • Snowflake
    • DynamoDB
    • Redis
    • OpenSearch
    • RAG & NLP
    • Recommendation & econometric models
    • Responsible-AI red-teaming
    • Bedrock: Claude, Titan Embeddings
    • ETL
    • pandas / NumPy
    • Tableau / Power BI

  • Health IT & interoperability

    • FHIR & health-data interoperability
    • CMS MDCT (Medicaid & CHIP)
    • Medicaid Drug Programs (MDP)
    • Credential interoperability (CTDL)
    • MACPro
    • CMSDS

  • Security & compliance

    • FedRAMP
    • StateRAMP
    • FISMA
    • HIPAA
    • PCI DSS
    • Section 508
    • CCPA
    • OWASP
    • SAST: CodeQL, bandit
    • KMS / AES-256-GCM
    • Cognito / Auth0 IAM
    • Prompt-injection & SSRF defenses
    • ATO delivery

  • Quality, accessibility & integration

    • WCAG 2.2 AA
    • USWDS / NJWDS / CMSDS
    • TDD: Jest, RTL, Cypress, Playwright
    • Lighthouse & coverage CI gates
    • Figma
    • Salesforce
    • Dynamics 365
    • MuleSoft
    • Natural/ADABAS modernization
    • Agile: Scrum / Kanban
    • ITIL

Recognition

Work on MyCareer.NJ has been recognized by:

  • Fast Company
  • Harvard Kennedy School, Project on Workforce
  • Royal Statistical Society
  • NASWA Workforce Innovation Award (nominee)

Press

Selected outside coverage of the public work I've led.

Recently played

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Get in touch

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