# Andrew McAllister

Director of IT at Cognition, building an AI-native IT function with Devin; ex-Cloudflare Customer Zero, Databricks, Cruise, MuleSoft  
Cognition  
San Francisco, California, United States

## At Cognition

- Role: Director of Information Technology (Engineering)
- Joined: Aug 2026
- How they joined: Directly
- Before Cognition: Director of IT, Customer Zero, Cloudflare
- Overlapped before Cognition with other Cognition people at: Salesforce; Databricks; Cloudflare; MuleSoft (https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/worked-together)

## Identity
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister
- Domain: cognition.ai

## Notes
- Joined Cognition (maker of Devin and Windsurf) as Director of Information Technology in Aug 2026, hired to lead and build out the IT function from scratch. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Announced the move on LinkedIn, verbatim: "Thrilled to share that I've joined Cognition to lead and build out IT!" (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrewmcallister_hiring-activity-7499109614605590529-XqHn?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHCglqcBKbsrGVUQdkc9pHbWbhDta_uxZus)
- His stated thesis for Cognition IT, verbatim: "not as a support function bolted on after the fact, but as a true engineering partner, with Devin operating alongside the team across automation, integrations, and enterprise systems." (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrewmcallister_hiring-activity-7499109614605590529-XqHn?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHCglqcBKbsrGVUQdkc9pHbWbhDta_uxZus)
- Mandate in his own words: "turning deep enterprise architecture expertise into the foundation for a security-first, AI-native IT team — built to lead, not follow." The post closes with "We're also growing the team — if this resonates, let's talk. #Hiring". (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrewmcallister_hiring-activity-7499109614605590529-XqHn?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHCglqcBKbsrGVUQdkc9pHbWbhDta_uxZus)
- Cognition role description: "Architecting an IT function where Devin operates as a true engineering collaborator — building automation, integrations, and knowledge systems alongside the team". (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Previous role: Director of IT, Customer Zero at Cloudflare (Sep 2024 to Aug 2026), the team that runs Cloudflare's own products internally first. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- At Cloudflare he partnered with the BI team to build an internal ITSM AI agent on Cloudflare Workers and Workers AI. It replaced two vendor tools and saved $500K a year. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- At Cloudflare he led an autonomous feedback-to-code pipeline that put SWE agents into CI/CD to turn user feedback into merge requests. This is a direct precursor to the Devin-alongside-IT model he now pitches at Cognition. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- At Cognition he is establishing identity, endpoint and automation standards for hyper-growth and building agent playbooks and context so AI agents take on support, enterprise-application and integration work. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- He arrived about 13 months after Cognition signed a definitive agreement (2025-07-14) to acquire Windsurf, the agentic IDE, including its IP, brand, $82M ARR, 350+ enterprise customers and its staff. (https://cognition.com/blog/windsurf)
- Architecture / Engineering Director (IT) at Databricks, Jan 2020 to May 2023. Built a team from scratch covering network, cloud, Kubernetes infrastructure, IAM and engineering applications. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- At Databricks he designed a multi-tenant, federated Okta deployment that onboarded 100+ apps inside the FedRAMP boundary using Terraform. He credits it with contributing to Databricks' FedRAMP Moderate authorization, alongside SOX controls and AWS GovCloud work toward FedRAMP High. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Principal Enterprise Architect at Cruise (GM's autonomous-vehicle unit), Jun 2023 to Jul 2024. Designed enterprise capabilities for AV telephony, data strategy and identity/access-management microservices, and mentored IT leaders. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Senior IT Operations Architect at MuleSoft (Sep 2014 to Jan 2020), continuing at Salesforce after the acquisition (May 2018 to Jan 2020). There he was platform lead for the center-for-enablement team driving internal Anypoint Platform adoption. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Public headline says "Architecture, CEO of Mac Dreamers LLC, Avid Technologist and Curious Soul". (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- At Cloudflare he also set up an internal AI R&D and enablement capability (prompt engineering, AI tooling, vibe coding) and a multi-skill AI evaluation engine for service-desk issue interception and remediation. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- A Cloudflare product intern credits him as manager on the IT Customer Zero team: "A huge thank you to Andrew McAllister for being such a transparent and supportive manager". Teammates named alongside him include Dana Fleishaker, Ish Ghai (PM) and Dillon Browne. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anukam_last-week-marked-the-end-of-my-summer-as-activity-7493303529466421248-rruB)
- At MuleSoft he built network architecture for a fast-growing post-IPO company and used MuleSoft to integrate internal SaaS systems (Salesforce, NetSuite, Workday, Google Apps). This was an early customer-zero style dogfooding role, a theme that recurs at Cloudflare and Cognition. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)

Currently Andrew at Databricks Inc, designing and building capabilities for scale. He maintains a broad scope of IT technologies from business critical applications such as Exchange/Okta/GoogleApps, Infrastructure as Code, Virtualization; this comes from the profile summary and preserves the person's own positioning. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Earlier career: LiveVox (Network and Systems Administrator, then Senior Infrastructure Architect, 2013-2014) and BrightSource Energy (Network and Security Administrator, 2012-2013). (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Previous roles include Director of IT, Customer Zero at Cloudflare; Principal Enterprise Architect at Cruise; Architecture / Engineering Director (IT) at Databricks; Senior IT Operations Architect at Salesforce; Senior IT Operations Architect at MuleSoft; Senior Infrastructure Architect at LiveVox; Network and Systems Administrator at LiveVox; Network and Security Administrator at BrightSource Energy, Inc. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Education history includes A.A.S, Information Technology, North Idaho College; self, Esoteric Education, Beshara School. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Self-listed stack: Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible, AWS/GCP, Kubernetes, MuleSoft Anypoint; network gear from Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Meraki and Zscaler; Powershell, Python, Node.js and Golang. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Runs Mac Dreamers LLC (CEO per headline) and does investment real estate: building teams to design and build multi-family units, with a focus on floor plans, kitchen design and construction financing. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)
- Location is San Francisco, California, United States. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister)

## Experience
- Director of Information Technology at Cognition - San Francisco Bay Area (Aug 2026 - Present): Pioneering Agentic IT Operations: Architecting an IT function where Devin operates as a true engineering collaborator — building automation, integrations, and knowledge systems alongside the team, redefining what "AI-native" IT actually means in practice.

Scaling the Technical Foundation: Establishing modern identity, endpoint, and automation standards to support hyper-growth expansion, while building a technical bench designed to specialize and grow as the AI-native capabilities mature.

Turning Institutional Knowledge into Autonomous Capability: Building the context, playbooks, and workflows that let AI agents take on real operational and engineering work — evolving IT into a self-improving, intelligence-driven function across support, enterprise applications, and integrations.
- Director of IT, Customer Zero at Cloudflare - San Francisco Bay Area (Sep 2024 - Aug 2026): Orchestrated a cross-functional partnership with the BI team to architect and deliver our internal ITSM AI agent on Cloudflare Workers and Workers AI, replacing two off-the-shelf vendor solutions and capturing $500K in annual cost savings.

Established a dedicated R&D capability to scale AI enablement across the enterprise, upskilling IT and business teams on prompt engineering, AI tooling, and vibe coding to accelerate time-to-production for internal applications.

Spearheaded an end-to-end autonomous feedback-to-code pipeline, directing the integration of SWE agents into our CI/CD workflow to synthesize user feedback, draft feature enhancements, and generate merge requests for engineering review.

Directed the implementation of a multi-skill AI evaluation engine, enabling context-aware issue interception and automated remediation across our service desk operations.
- Principal Enterprise Architect at Cruise - San Francisco Bay Area (Jun 2023 - Jul 2024): Designed enterprise wide capabilities working cross-functionally in areas of AV Telephony, Data strategy and identity Access management micro services.

Mentored IT leaders: Fostered inclusive and collaborative environment to both empower meaningful professional growth for teams supported and align with business scaling goals.

Evaluated emerging technologies for potential adoption and drove standardization efforts towards being intentional around planning, design process, and product road mapping.
- Architecture / Engineering Director (IT) at Databricks - San Francisco Bay Area (Jan 2020 - May 2023): Leadership

• Built team from scratch into high performing team covering network, cloud, Kubernetes infrastructure, IAM strategy and engineering applications.

• Built Identity Access Management and Assurance program, implemented controls and automation to enable self service capabilities for thousands of entitlements

• Lead cross functional engagement building capabilities and relationships between core stakeholder teams such as Security, Engineering, and internal IT teams.

• Implemented IAM program for Okta for SOX, FedRAMP moderate and continued our journey on AWS govcloud for FedRAMP High.

• Owned the direction and strategy, managed execution of all network infra aspects for IT facilities projects.

Architecture 

• Devised overall strategy and design for implementing multi-tenant, federated Okta deployment onboarding over 100 applications within the FedRAMP boundary with terraform contributing to Databrick's achieving its FedRAMP Moderate Authorization.

• Scalable network architecture for datacenter and branch offices globally. Lead role in design, project execution and implementation of network infrastructure for new offices, IaaS for rapid growth, pre
IPO company.
- Senior IT Operations Architect at Salesforce - San Francisco Bay Area (May 2018 - Jan 2020): Platform Lead for center for enablement team driving adoption of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform for Salesforce internal teams.

Advocating API lead methodology and facilitating application of best practices and architecture patterns for the creation of restful and component services.
- Senior IT Operations Architect at MuleSoft - San Francisco Bay Area (Sep 2014 - Jan 2020): Scalable network architecture for datacenter and branch offices globally.  Lead role in design, project execution and implementation of network infrastructure for new offices, co locations and IaaS for a rapid growth, post IPO company.

Key Areas of focus: 

Network automation and deployment of services across Amazon Web Services.

Business process management / Process automation.

Business analysis with the intent to improve business processes, data integrity and data connectivity.

Key contributer on API design / development and using Mulesoft to build integrations between core business and SaaS applications such as Saleforce, Netsuite, Workday, Google Apps etc

Thought leadership and partnership with internal business units to provided services and innovation in line with business objectives and of value to both our customers and product.  An opportunity to be our own customer using Mulesoft to connect everything at Mulesoft and deliver value to our consumers.

I love empowering enthusiasm.  That is, I geek out with other geeks.  As part of a benefit of a fast growing company being larger including my own team growing, the ability to mentor and empower small teams to be highly successful has been both experimental as well as very rewarding.  Looking forward to doing more.
- Senior Infrastructure Architect at LiveVox - San Francisco Bay Area (Dec 2013 - Aug 2014): -Deploying scalable datacenters in Amazon Web Services while adhering to industry standards for security and network best practices.

-Key Contributor in initiatives to both scale and improve private datacenter reliability.  Architecture of HA Edge network infrastructure, scalability of multi-tenant MPLS/IPSEC VPN and application load balancing.

-Designed and implemented new SaaS based monitoring solution.  Worked closely with Systems and Engineering teams to, in addition to network metrics, build out monitoring of systems, application and business KPIs.  This has greatly improved data driven capacity planning and platform visibility.  Lead role in empowering NOC and Support teams with new monitoring tools.

-Architecture of all corporate and branch office network infrastructure and improvements.  Lead role in implementation, while empowering others to take ownership of infrastructure through predictable design.
- Network and Systems Administrator at LiveVox - San Francisco Bay Area (Jan 2013 - Dec 2013): Scalable Network Architecture.

Creating value by advocating effective collaboration and creative use of technology in line with business goals.
- Network and Security Administrator at BrightSource Energy, Inc. - Oakland, CA (Jan 2012 - Jan 2013): -Senior member of IT Operations team: maintaining a broad scope of IT technologies from business critical applications such as Exchange, Virtualization to Storage and Network Core technologies.  Instrumental in new systems and improving existing systems. This has greatly improved the overall health, resiliency, and documentation of key systems.

-Project Lead on implementing corporate DR strategy including HA multi-site network infrastructure, Business Continuity and Exchange Site Resiliency. Directly involved in the design resulting in a reduction of RPO and RTO from 24Hrs+ to 1 hour or less.  Attentive to storage redundancy to maintain adequate RPO/RTO with cost of cloud resources in check.

-Lead role on instruction and implementation of application / infrastructure best practices, automation and both user and IT training.  This has led to significantly reduced SLAs by introducing better procedures, expectations and eliminating the use of traditional and manual methods of managing systems by helpdesk and sysadmin teams.

-Instrumental in the implementation and configuration of corporate security initiatives. Hardware encrypted SSDs, Mobileiron, Fireeye, Forescout, Zscaler, SSLVPN et al.
- Information Technology Network Administrator at San Francisco Ballet (Nov 2008 - Feb 2012): Network and System Administration 

•	Maintained and administered a multiple site Cisco infrastructure, network design, DHCP, QoS, DNS, et al. 

•	Deployed, administered and maintained 25+ Windows 2003/2008 servers and 200+ Windows PCs and Macs.  Administered a Vmware ESX 4 vSphere cluster and was involved in physical to virtual migration. 

•	Administered Active Directory, hosted Exchange 2003, Group Policy and package management.   Deployed and administered Microsoft Deployment Services and Symantec client imaging solutions. 

•	Administered IIS, domain registration, public DNS and deployed SSL certificates as well as installed and maintained several SQL databases, their applications and common DBA tasks. 

Helpdesk and Application Support 

•	Customer service oriented providing all tier helpdesk support, webhelpdesk administration and technical training.   Deployed, administrated and maintained all critical business applications. Web and database based. 

•	Experience with Cisco VOIP and wireless / security technologies and mobile devices. 

Network Security and Change Management 

•	Administered Cisco ASA firewalls and deployed and maintained Cisco / Barracuda VPN and security solutions. 

•	Identified security vulnerabilities, made recommendations and implemented various solutions. 

•	Researched, implemented and administered client side security and Backup Exec data redundancy solutions.  Researched, deployed and administered Postini and Barracuda email / web filter security solutions. 

•	Change management, documented policies, procedures, and network / system configurations. 

Projects and Collaboration 

•	On large time sensitive projects, both managed and worked w/ a variety of consultants to meet our project goals. 

•	Worked closely with other departments to then head the technical implementation of multi-phase projects. 

•	Team player both enthusiastic about technology and desiring to work in a creative environment.
- System Administrator at McAllister Technical Services (May 2007 - Oct 2008): Deployed and administered Active Directory, Group Policy and package management.
       Maintained all hardware, software, and network for 12 windows XP computers including documentation.
       Designed, implemented and administered client side security and data protection solutions.
       Other: designed new company product catalog / video slide show for trade shows and created system polices.
Byte Me Computers
Personal Custom Computer Building ­ Self
- CITE Student at North Idaho College (Jan 2006 - Jan 2008): Cisco Acadamy: Lab setting with multiple case studies done on live Cisco hardware.

## Education
- North Idaho College - A.A.S, Information Technology - (Jan 2006 - Jan 2008): Deans List.  In addition to degree, obtained MCSA, CCNA, A+ technical certifications
- Beshara School - self, Esoteric Education - (Jan 2004 - Jan 2006)

## Sources
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcallister?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAAKJbzMBZRVGotgCU-3wrw7VWsd5FZxZfqU
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anukam_last-week-marked-the-end-of-my-summer-as-activity-7493303529466421248-rruB
- https://cognition.com/blog/windsurf
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrewmcallister_hiring-activity-7499109614605590529-XqHn?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHCglqcBKbsrGVUQdkc9pHbWbhDta_uxZus


Researched with Autumn (https://www.autumn.ai) from public sources. Updated 2026-11-04. Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/people/andrew-mcallister · Everyone at Cognition: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/people