William Luisi

William Luisi is a senior engineering leader, systems architect, and full-stack technologist with more than a decade of experience designing, modernizing, and scaling enterprise-grade digital platforms for mission-driven organizations, world-class libraries, universities, nonprofits, agencies, and fast-moving startups. He specializes in headless CMS migrations, React and Next.js engineering, federated GraphQL architectures, and performance optimization at scale—bringing clarity, stability, and future-ready engineering to complex ecosystems.

At Avidano Digital, as Chief Technology Officer, Bill leads technical architecture and engineering strategy with a rare blend of deep technical rigor, thoughtful communication, and people-centered leadership. He excels at translating abstract business needs into intuitive, scalable systems—guiding product teams, designers, and non-technical stakeholders through the “why” as well as the “how.” His work strengthens platform reliability, reduces technical debt, and builds modern digital foundations that last.

Before joining Avidano Digital, Bill served as Engineering Lead and Manager at the New York Public Library, where he oversaw the headless CMS migration of NYPL.org and led a fully remote team of six engineers. He expanded and managed the team, delivered a multi-year roadmap to sunset legacy applications, architected a federated GraphQL API integrating multiple data sources, and established the library’s design system using React and Storybook. His leadership reduced organizational technical debt by 50%, modernized the tech stack, and improved performance, scalability, and development efficiency across NYPL’s entire digital portfolio.

Prior to NYPL, Bill served as Head of Engineering at First Turn Media, where he built and led remote engineering teams, implemented standardized DevOps workflows using Docker, Jest, Cypress, CircleCI, and AWS, and delivered numerous headless CMS sites using Contentful, Strapi, WordPress, Drupal, React, Next.js, and Gatsby. He defined cross-functional agile processes that improved delivery velocity and product quality across all mobile and web products.

Bill’s earlier engineering career includes roles at Capellic, Columbia University, and New York University, where he developed custom Drupal modules, architected accessibility-compliant platforms, modernized university-wide systems, and created complex integrations across large digital ecosystems. His work included multilingual site migrations, accessibility compliance for WCAG Level AA, custom application development, and high-impact projects for nonprofits such as Climate Reality Project, UNICEF Canada, Operation Smile, ASPCAPro, and RecycleWhere.

A technologist with both breadth and depth, William’s expertise spans:

React, Next.js, Typescript, GraphQL, Node.js, Symfony, RESTful and GraphQL APIs, Drupal (including decoupled architectures), Headless CMS platforms (Contentful, Sanity, Strapi), PHP, MySQL/PostgreSQL, AWS, Vercel, modern CI/CD pipelines, and performance optimization frameworks aligned with Core Web Vitals. He combines technical leadership with a commitment to mentorship, inclusive collaboration, and systems thinking—building engineering cultures that are grounded, accountable, and forward-looking.

Known for his calm presence, clarity in communication, and ability to align technical direction with organizational vision, William helps teams navigate ambiguity, reduce risk, and build modern digital infrastructure that can grow with them. In every challenge he’s entrusted with, he brings a philosophy of engineering as service—creating systems that are scalable, maintainable, and meaningful to the people who depend on them.