Joel Cory — UX Architect

20+ years designing complex enterprise systems. From AI-powered educational ecosystems to platforms serving 70M+ students.

Joel Cory – Product Design ArchitectResume PDF

Summary

Systems-focused Product Design Architect with 20+ years creating scalable design foundations for complex EdTech and enterprise platforms serving 70M+ users. Expert in building design systems, information architecture, and technical frameworks that reduce development costs by 40% while maintaining consistency across multi-product ecosystems. Bridge between design and engineering with deep front-end development expertise (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and proven ability to lead cross-functional teams through large-scale transformations. Experienced mentor to designers and cross-functional teams, with working knowledge of AI-assisted design tools including Claude, Gemini, and ComfyUI.

Core Impact: Patent-pending AI learning platform | Design systems adopted across 3,000+ institutions | 30% reduction in user time-on-task through IA optimization

Competencies

Systems & Architecture

  • Design Systems Architecture & Governance
  • Information Architecture & Taxonomy
  • Component Libraries & Pattern Systems
  • Technical Design Documentation
  • Scalable Design Infrastructure

Technical Leadership

  • Front-End Development (HTML/CSS/JS)
  • Design-to-Development Workflow
  • Accessibility Standards (WCAG)
  • Responsive & Adaptive Design
  • Design System Adoption & Training
  • Design Critique Facilitation
  • AI-Assisted Design Workflows

Strategic Design

  • Cross-Product Consistency Strategy
  • Design Operations & Process
  • Heuristic Evaluation & Audits
  • User Research & Testing Frameworks
  • Figma/Sketch Systems Management

Experience

IMA (Contract)

Jan 2025 – Present  |  UX Designer

Design systems consultant for financial services association serving 300,000+ members.

  • Designed Figma design system components following atomic design principles, improving page consistency and reducing designer time-on-task
  • Architected a publication submission system workflow integrating Monday.com forms with review and approval processes
  • Redesigned B2C site architecture to improve information hierarchy and member value communication
  • AI Tools: Claude, Figma, Stitch, ComfyUI – design ideation, content generation, and workflow acceleration

FedPoint (Contract)

Jan 2024 – Jan 2025  |  UX Designer

Design systems and UX architecture consultant for government contractor managing sensitive, access-restricted data environments.

  • Led comprehensive UX audits identifying usability and accessibility improvements, presenting findings and recommendations to leadership
  • Consulted with executive team on UX strategy to improve customer experience and drive user acceptance
  • Collaborated with development teams to implement design improvements reducing costs through consistent patterns

Southern New Hampshire University

Oct 2021 – Aug 2023  |  UX Architect
Product Design Leadership Role

Design Systems Leadership:

  • Architected and implemented the Confetti Design System from ground-up, collaborating with leadership and design teams to create comprehensive component library, design tokens, and documentation
  • Reduced design-to-development handoff time by 40% through systematic component reuse and clear technical specifications
  • Established design system governance process ensuring consistency across 15+ product teams

Technical & Strategic:

  • Partnered with Google AI engineering teams to design personalized learning platform architecture; contributed to patent application for adaptive learning system
  • Conducted extensive UX research including user interviews, journey mapping, and heuristic evaluations to inform architectural decisions
  • Led Agile cross-functional teams using design sprints and iterative prototyping for high-impact solutions

Process Innovation:

  • Assumed product manager responsibilities for communications and support systems, leading team of designers and developers through discovery, definition, and delivery
  • Created information architecture frameworks that reduced system complexity and improved navigation consistency across platform

Emily Masterson
Manager at SNHU, and IMA

Product Design & UX Leadership, Design Strategist, Innovative Thought Leader

I had the pleasure of working closely with Joel for these last two years on designing a learning ecosystem from the ground up. Joel was invaluable throughout the experience, he led the design of the ecosystem through his robust and thoughtful architectural diagrams that carefully considered both experience and technical opportunities and constraints, he mentored both senior and junior staff on the architecture to ensure comprehensive understanding and fluency in the vision, and he was a collaborative and insightful thought partner, working across teams to ensure his designs met all requirements and user needs.

Additionally, Joel is an exceptional mentor to the team – his insights during design review often pushed designers to think more critically about their work and generate even stronger designs. He made himself available to any designer or product manager who wanted to talk through part of the ecosystem, and consistently provided sound advice while still ensuring designers had creative freedom to explore possible solutions. For me, he was a critical thought partner on vision and strategy and would ask deeply insightful questions and offer up potential solutions, through our collaboration we were able to produce even stronger work.

Finally, Joel is also an exceptional designer. Beyond his architecture work, Joel was never afraid to tackle sticky UX problems and draft up multiple wireframe solutions to engage stakeholders and developers in creative solutioning. He was design lead on multiple feature sets for our first major greenfield software release and delivered high quality, accessible, and engaging UX designs. He also served as a QA reviewer for all design system work and contributed significantly to the refinement of components and patterns. For these reasons and more, I enthusiastically recommend Joel for anywhere his career may take him!

PowerSchool, Inc.

Jan 2019 – Oct 2021  |  UX Manager

Managed multi-disciplinary design team delivering user-centered design systems for enterprise K-12 SIS platform serving 70M students across 3,000+ school districts.

Design System Architecture:

  • Conceptualized and led cross-functional team to redesign comprehensive Information Architecture, eliminating redundancy and streamlining workflows across web and mobile experiences
  • Implemented design systems and component libraries that reduced UI development time by 40% for internal teams and external customizers
  • Created design standards that drove consistency across 12 acquired product lines and integrations

Team & Strategic Leadership:

  • Led and mentored team of 5 designers through user research, design sprints, and iterative delivery, providing structured feedback and career development guidance
  • Reduced user time-on-task by 30% through IA optimization and interaction pattern standardization
  • Presented at UX conference on design strategy, usability testing, and scalable interaction design

Process & Efficiency:

  • Established design operations workflows that balanced business objectives with user needs
  • Created documentation, governance processes, and structured design critique frameworks for design system adoption across distributed development teams

PowerSchool, Inc. (Pearson)

Dec 2007 – Dec 2019  |  Senior UX Designer & UI Developer

Architected UX/UI solutions for dozens of features in the K-12 Student Information System – a data-intensive platform managing PII for 70M+ students under strict FERPA compliance requirements.

Systems Development:

  • Conceptualized and implemented UI pattern library and design system components reducing development time by 40% through reusable, responsive, accessible interfaces
  • Established information architecture and interaction patterns ensuring consistency across multiple rebrands and system overhauls
  • Reduced support calls by 10% through systematic improvement of interface clarity and navigation
  • Applied security-conscious design principles to workflows handling restricted user data, balancing usability with compliance and access control requirements

Technical Implementation:

  • Developed front-end code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) working directly with engineering teams to ensure design fidelity and technical feasibility
  • Conducted workshops on front-end coding best practices and standards, facilitating cross-functional collaboration

User Research:

  • Led UX research including usability testing, cognitive walkthroughs, and persona development to guide iterative design improvements
  • Established research frameworks used across product organization

Sam Spencer

Engineering Manager, Direct Manager
GVP, Software Engineering at PowerSchool

Joel has consistently received positive feedback from PowerSchool project stakeholders and from members of the core development team. This positive feedback is due in part to his attention to detail, ability to think through edge cases, and ability to anticipate user needs.

Joel has worked proactively to ensure the long-term system health of PowerSchool’s presentation layer. He has successfully met the objectives by developing reusable components and user interface modules and contributing to UI documentation and standards. Joel has been an effective steward of PowerSchool’s UI.

Joel has built solid relationships with his peers throughout K-12 Technology and he is a friendly and engaging member of the team. He has shown a willingness to help and teach teammates, shift his priorities to best support the business, and he effectively communicates with his teammates and project stakeholders. Joel is well respected throughout the engineering organization.

Earlier Experience

Hewlett Packard

Jan 2007 – Dec 2007  |  Instructional Designer & Technical Writer

  • Developed user-centered instructional designs for global procurement systems, aligning training materials with key user needs to drive more consistent and efficient ordering practices.

InsWeb, Inc.

Dec 2005 – Sept 2006  |  UI Designer & UI Developer

  • Conceptualized and implemented UX/UI solutions for web and dynamic advertising, improving conversion rates through user-centered designs and A/B testing.
  • Implemented standards-based, accessible, and SEO-compliant design practices, reducing page load times and enhancing user engagement.

Education & Professional Development

  • Industrial Design, San Jose State University
  • Project Management Training, Davis & Dean
  • ActionScript Certification, Macromedia
  • Business of Thinking Training, Herrmann International

Skills

  • Design Systems: Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, InVision | Component libraries, Design tokens, Documentation systems
  • AI Tools: Claude, Claude Code, Comfyui, Gemini
  • Front-End Development: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Responsive frameworks, Version control (Git)
  • Architecture: Information Architecture, Interaction patterns, Navigation systems, Taxonomy design
  • Research & Testing: Usability testing, Heuristic evaluation, A/B testing, Analytics
  • Collaboration: Cross-functional team leadership, Agile/Scrum, Design sprints, Stakeholder management
  • Accessibility: WCAG 2.1 compliance, Accessible component design, Screen reader optimization

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS & ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Conference Speaker: Presented design strategy and usability testing at industry UX conference
  • Patent Contributor: Co-inventor on patent application for AI-powered personalized learning platform
  • Hackathon Winner: Led winning team designing Alexa app for parent-student engagement (PowerSchool, 2017)
  • Design Systems Impact: Created systems reducing development time 40% and serving 70M+ users