Matthew
Hudson

Engineering Director with 15+ years of experience leading teams and managing managers. Known for delivering high-impact PubTech projects that fuel business growth, including relaunches of The Star Tribune, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.
Engineering Director | New York | matthud@gmail.com | 321-655-9102 | linkedin.com/in/thematthewhudson | hudson.dev

Experience

Code & Theory

Sep 2023 - Current
Engineering Director
  • Directed the cross-functional relaunch of StarTribune.com, coordinating ~30 engineers (onshore + offshore), PMs, and designers; achieved a 35% YoY increase in subscriptions, hitting 40% of monthly goals within 24 hours.
  • Oversaw the end-to-end development of RealClearPolling.com, improving user engagement and Core Web Vitals by 30% (80–90+ range) through Lighthouse CLI, GitHub CI, and SpeedCurve performance audits.
  • Served as primary engineering liaison with Vercel to ensure 99.99% uptime, hardened security, and elastic scalability for high-traffic political events, using Next.js and performance-monitoring best practices.

Pager

Nov 2021 - Jun 2023
Engineering Manager
  • Introduced scalable engineering best practices including Storybook-based design system (using design tokens and atomic design), reducing delivery time by 40% and raising code quality via Sonar, ESLint, and Prettier enforcement.
  • Directed development of Pager’s React + Next.js healthcare app, leading architecture decisions and Agile execution that drove 25% higher patient engagement and 20% faster provider response times.
  • Led a globally distributed team of 9 engineers across 4 countries, driving agile delivery with Scrum ceremonies, mentoring across time zones, and embedding a culture of innovation and engineering excellence.

Condé Nast

Oct 2015 - Jul 2018
Engineering Manager -> Engineering Director
  • Managed managers, led a geographically dispersed team of 25-30 engineers responsible for: Bon Appétit, Traveler, Epicurious, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.
  • Delivered a 220%–260% performance improvement for Vanity Fair (from 25 to 80-90) on Google's PageSpeed Insights.
  • Drove a successful technical strategy in response to a critical Trump tweet that translated into a 100-fold increase in Vanity Fair subscriptions (13,000 subscribers within 24 hours).​
  • Collaborated with cross-functional teams to optimize AdTech and Paywall strategies, tripling paid subscriptions YOY.
  • Orchestrated internal web performance efforts, disseminating learnings department-wide, achieving a 25% improvement across brands.

Betaworks

Oct 2013 - Jun 2015
Senior Engineer -> Engineering Director -> Interim CTO
  • Led frontend development at Kandu, a no-code iPad platform that teaches kids computational thinking, crafting intuitive creative tools and experiences to support user expression at scale and deliver on ambitious product roadmaps.
  • Served as interim CTO for AlphaWorks, partnering with incoming CEO to rebuild the engineering team from scratch and guide the product through a critical leadership transition.
  • Served as interim CTO for Kandu, managing a team of five engineers through high-stakes transitions, emphasizing mentorship, agile delivery, and cross-functional collaboration.

SeatGeek

Jan 2013 - Jul 2013
Senior Frontend Engineer
  • Led frontend development as principal engineer, driving bug resolution and establishing platform-wide best practices for UI quality, performance, and maintainability.
  • Spearheaded frontend architecture for SeatGeek’s Sixpack A/B testing framework, including development and maintenance of its supporting NPM library.

Skills

Languages & Frameworks
PHP, Python, JavaScript (ES6+), TypeScript, React.js, Next.js, GraphQL, Node.js
Infrastructure & DevOps
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Vercel, Heroku, Docker, CI/D (GitHub Actions, Circle, Jenkins)
Web Performance
Core Web Vitals, SpeedCurve, Google PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, Sonar
Security & Compliance
OAuth, JWT, SOX, GDPR, PCI, COPPA, HIPPA, WCAG, Web Security Best Practices
Content Management
Optimizely/Episerver, WordPress, Hybris, Contentful, Sanity, ArcXP, Payload
Certifications
Optimizely Technical Sales Sanity Developer

Awards

Webby Awards: People's Voice for Magazine Websites
The New Yorker ‘17 & ‘19, Epicurious ‘18
Webby Awards: Magazine Websites
The New Yorker ‘17 & ‘19, Epicurious ‘18, Vanity Fair ‘18
Condé Nast Creativity Award
Condé Nast · 2016