Joshua Schaff
Senior Engineering Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering at Cohere Health
Implementing AgentCore AI building blocks to reduce medical review times by 30-40%.
Intro
I'm Joshua Schaff, currently serving as the Senior Engineering Manager for Forward Deployed Engineering at Cohere Health. My career has been defined by a transition from data science and software engineering into leadership, where I now manage globally distributed teams focused on healthcare interoperability and platform scaling. I'm a developer at heart who believes in leading by doing, and I'm particularly passionate about using agentic AI and standardized building blocks to solve complex clinical workflows. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, I'm focused on reducing provider burden through mission-critical technology like FHIR and event-driven architectures. I’m always looking to connect with fellow health-tech innovators, potential engineering talent, or local professionals in the Charlottesville area to share insights on scaling high-impact engineering organizations.
Networking
What I can offer
- ›Expertise in health-tech scaling and interoperability
- ›Mentorship for engineering leaders and software engineers
- ›Insights into building event-driven architectures and platform primitives
What I'm looking for
- ›expanding my professional network
- ›exploring mutual opportunities in Charlottesville, VA
- ›Staff Engineer candidates for Integrations Platform roles
Best fit for
Focus
Current interests
Core competencies
Background
Career
Progressed from IT Co-Op and Data Science roles to Senior Software Engineer at Cohere Health, eventually moving into Engineering Management and Platform leadership.
Education
Bachelor of Science, Data Science and Entrepreneurship, University of Michigan (2014 – 2018)
Achievements
- ›Achieved 20% productivity increase and 73% bug reduction in Q2 at Cohere Health
- ›Expanded electronic prior authorization to 13 health systems via SMART on FHIR
- ›Architected Hermes Message Pipeline for multi-tenant scaling
- ›Contributed to a Coursera specialization with over 91,000 enrollees
Opinions
- Leading by doing: Managers should remain hands-on with architecture and code
- Efficiency through Primitives: Use standardized building blocks to avoid undifferentiated heavy lifting
- AI in healthcare must be grounded in safety, trust, and clinical responsibility
Personality
Communication style
Professional, enthusiastic, and results-oriented, balancing strategic vision with technical depth.
Formality — 7/10
Vocabulary