Hi, Riley Durham here. I’m an Event Marketing Manager and Social Media Marketer at Cortex, and I’m here to share how a culture of autonomy and excellence has opened doors for career growth at Cortex.
Before joining Cortex, I worked in the DevSec tool space, wearing multiple hats managing events, demand generation, social media, and direct mail marketing. That variety gave me a solid foundation in full-funnel marketing, but it was joining Cortex that really accelerated my growth trajectory.
Autonomy and trust from leadership
From day one at Cortex, leadership has trusted me to own my area of expertise and run with new ideas. This isn't the kind of place where you need five approvals to try something different– leadership encourages experimentation.
I've gone from simply executing events to owning the comprehensive strategy and making sure it drives real business impact. I’ve led our presence at conferences and developer meetups, and we host our own events like IDPCON, Engineering Excellence Summits, and Leadership Dinners. With social media, I've had the chance to shape Cortex's brand voice on LinkedIn, significantly boost our engagement within the developer community, and show our behind-the-scenes action on Instagram.
When you’re given the space to experiment, you can level up much faster. For me, that was testing new ideas, refining our social strategy, and launching creative campaigns. I've developed muscles in strategic planning and data-driven marketing that show leadership exactly how our campaigns move the needle.
A commitment to growth and learning at Cortex
Many startups move fast, and at Cortex, that’s translated into the opportunity to grow quickly within the company. Here are a few things that make the growth opportunity at Cortex unique:
Best in the industry: When I joined the team, it was immediately clear to me that Cortex hires the best people in the industry. The chance to learn and grow alongside the best in the business was a huge draw.
Bring your best every day: Employees at Cortex believe in embracing innovation and performing at the highest level. Every day, I’m inspired by teammates who tackle challenging situations head-on and hold themselves to a high bar of excellence. Working at Cortex makes you want to bring your best because everyone around you is doing the same.
A culture of ownership: I work among smart, driven people, and they genuinely want to share their ideas and hear yours. Great ideas can come from anywhere, and if you take initiative at Cortex, you’ll have the support to run with it.
Continuous improvement: After every event, I collect anonymous 360-degree feedback, which helps me debrief, learn, and make the next event even better. This mindset of continuous improvement is baked into our culture. It helps me grow as a strategic marketer and improve how I take feedback, iterate quickly, and lead with impact.
Engineering excellence: How Cortex is championing engineers
When I joined the team, Cortex was pioneering Internal Developer Portals. I remember attending conferences where hardly anyone knew what an IDP was. I had to start every conversation by explaining the concept.
Fast-forward to today, and companies are actively seeking us out at events and conferences to learn how to drive engineering excellence with IDPs. This is just one indicator of how much the industry is evolving and how Cortex is leading that charge.
Our marketing approach has shifted as the market has grown. We’re taking a more integrated, data-driven approach without losing touch with our creativity and ability to stay agile. A big focus has been building messaging around engineering excellence as a powerful way to show engineering driving business outcomes. Whether it's a tweet, an event, or a thought leadership piece, we're speaking directly to the real challenges and aspirations of engineers, showing them we truly understand their pain points.
In October, we're bringing together top engineering minds for the only in-person event dedicated to IDPs. I'm excited to elevate the conversation around developer experience and engineering excellence and ultimately connect the platform engineering community in new ways.
As Cortex grows, so does our opportunity to tell our story in bold new ways. We're creating thought leadership campaigns and continually experimenting with new marketing channels and formats to engage with the developer community.
Join me at IDPCON
I’m excited to be leading the planning for IDPCON this October. Cortex’s in-person event dedicated to Internal Developer Portals and engineering excellence. It’s where the platform engineering community comes together to share bold ideas, real strategies, and what’s next in developer experience. Plus, you’ll get to meet the incredible Cortex team I spoke so highly about.
Register for IDPCON now at idpcon.com and use code BLOG101 for a complimentary ticket to learn more about Cortex and IDPs.
