Austin Smith

Austin Smith and Matt Johnson began Alley in 2010 to provide consulting and web development expertise for media and non-profit clients. Since then, Alley has built a number of prominent digital media properties and become a leader in developing open source content management and publishing software.

As Managing Partner of Alley, Austin focuses on the design, creation, and maintenance of high scalability sites. He defined the architecture and direction of client sites like the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and the New York Post. During his work with clients, he has built custom solutions to solve specific editorial needs, like an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Subsidy Calculator for KFF which accurately predicted subsidies before the launch of the federal health insurance law. (Outlets including NPR, The New York Times, and The Washington Post all credited this tool in their reporting.) In addition, he was the initial author of Fieldmanager, Alley’s signature WordPress plugin.

Prior to Alley, Austin was director of technology, and emerging markets for About.com, a division of The New York Times Company, and was the lead developer for The Economist’s website.

Austin has presented his work at industry conferences including WordCamp San Francisco, WordCamp London, DrupalCon Paris, WordCamp Nashville, DrupalCamp Philadelphia, and numerous WordPress VIP events.

Austin is based in New York City.