Building Systems That Don’t Break Under Success

I’m Zach McCormick, and I’ve spent the last 15+ years learning what happens when software meets reality at massive scale. To me, the biggest technical challenges aren’t about writing clever code—they’re about building systems robust enough to handle colossal scale, complex enough to solve real problems, yet simple enough to maintain and debug when everything is on fire at 3 AM.

Through roles at companies ranging from early-stage startups (HoneyCo Homes, SmileDirectClub, Superblocks) to hypergrowth success stories (Braze), I’ve seen the same patterns repeatedly:

• Companies that succeed will hit scaling walls they never anticipated
• Technical debt compounds faster than financial debt
• The difference between 99.9% and 99.99% uptime is not just 10x harder to hit

Additionally, my last 2 years have heavily involved AI inside and outside of the work with my previous employers. I am an avid supporter of combining established frameworks and patterns with new tools and techniques to get the most value from AI and LLM-enabled features as fast as possible.

What I Bring to the Table

Deep Technical Expertise

I’ve architected systems from scratch, rescued failing infrastructures, and transformed monoliths into modular powerhouses. My talks at conferences like MongoDB World and Datadog DASH aren’t theoretical—they’re war stories from the trenches.

Crisis-Tested Leadership

I’ve led incident resolution for critical outages, implemented organization-wide on-call processes, and mentored engineers on finding root causes under pressure. When systems fail, I know how to fix them—and how to prevent the next failure.

Patent Law & IP Experience

Having reviewed code for patent litigation across diverse technologies—from Android security frameworks, to video codecs, to complex microcontroller algorithms—I understand both how to build defensible IP and how to analyze it when disputes arise.

Startup, Growth, and Enterprise-stage AI Feature Development

I have built or advised on AI systems (primarily textual LLM systems and scorers/classifiers) for all ranges of products. I understand the tools and architecture that lead to predictable, observable, and consistent operation, as well as how to build foundations that can be iterated on over time by teams of engineers and specialists.

Published Research

With several conference/journal publications and patents spanning distributed systems, mobile security, and data analysis, I bridge the gap between academic rigor and practical application.

Who I Work With

I partner with:

• Startups requiring fractional CTO-level guidance without full-time overhead
• Growth-stage companies hitting their first real scaling challenges
• Enterprise teams modernizing legacy systems without disrupting operations
• Law firms needing technical expertise for patent litigation

Let’s Solve Your Hard Problems

Whether you’re dealing with a system that’s creaking under load, need expert testimony or discovery for a patent case, or want to build technical infrastructure that can handle 100x growth, I’m here to help.

Contact me at info@colossusinnovation.com