Ryan Wold

Full-Stack Engineer | Product Manager | Civic Technologist

Professional Summary

Engineer and product manager who builds feedback systems inside institutions. Founded and ran Touchpoints, a government-wide customer-feedback platform at GSA, from prototype to 4,200+ users and 9.5M responses over seven years. Twenty years across public finance, education operations, product consulting, and federal service — comfortable owning a system end-to-end, from stakeholder alignment to security compliance to schema design.

Core Competencies

  • Systems Thinking & Service Design
  • Product Management & Strategy
  • Business Process & Workflow Design
  • Executive Stakeholder Management
  • Full-Stack Development (Ruby, Rails, Elixir, JavaScript)
  • AI/LLM Integration (embeddings, NLP, topic modeling)
  • Data Engineering & Analytics
  • Security & Compliance (federal ATOs)

Professional Experience

Civic Studio

2025 - Present (full-time)
2018 - 2025 (part-time freelance)

Founder

  • Implementing RPMS, the Indian Health Service's EHR system, for the Yakama Tribal Nation
  • Built a topic-modeling tool for the NIST CAISI (AI) team to analyze how LLMs are used in the workplace, supporting OMB M-25-21 and inspired by Anthropic's Clio research (Elixir, Python, embeddings)
  • Established analytics.colorado.gov with the Colorado Digital Service, under a SIPA grant
  • Built and operate touchpoints.app and jurisdictional.org

U.S. General Services Administration - TTS

2018 - 2025

Innovation Specialist / Feedback Analytics Engineer (GS-15)

  • Built and scaled Touchpoints from concept to 4,200+ users across 100+ federal teams, capturing 9.5M survey responses
  • Proposed and led consolidation of the dormant U.S. Digital Registry into Touchpoints, restoring active management and saving $200K+ annually
  • Led Touchpoints' federal security compliance (ATO); advised the Digital Analytics Program and re-established its ATO
  • Ran the first cross-agency NLP analysis of open-text federal customer feedback

Pivotal Labs

2016 - 2018

Senior Software Engineer / Product Manager

  • Consulted with enterprise clients on product strategy, aligning delivery with business objectives
  • Led microservices decomposition of high-traffic monoliths, including live migrations
  • Coached client teams on XP practices and service design methodologies

Neo Innovation

2014 - 2016

Product Engineer

  • Launched innovation project for Time Magazine in 8 weeks, acquiring 75+ users within 2 weeks
  • Led full-cycle product engagements from inception through validation and delivery

Granicus

2011 - 2014

Developer

  • Led development of Citizen Participation 2.0 platform serving government clients nationwide
  • Championed product design processes and agile delivery practices across teams

Earlier Career

2001 - 2010
  • Director of Operations, Mare Island Technology Academy (2008–2010) — ran a 700-student charter school: 50+ staff, $5M+ budget, $1M+ federal ARRA grant
  • IT Specialist / Systems Accountant, Solano County Auditor-Controller (2001–2008) — enterprise financial systems for 400+ users; 200+ financial reports

Education

Master of Public Administration (e-Government) - Walden University

Bachelor of Arts in Communications (New Media) - California State University, Sacramento