Modernizing the machinery behind publishing at scale.

A large news organization serves multiple audiences at once: readers, editors, producers, product teams, revenue partners, and the engineers operating the platform. Changes to the publishing system ripple across all of them.

CNN's modernization work joined editorial tooling, delivery infrastructure, frontend systems, and new commerce needs. The goal was not simply to replace an old interface, but to create a platform teams could build on as publishing formats and business priorities evolved.

Publishing systems carry years of workflow knowledge and operational expectations. Modernization had to account for real editorial practices, multiple downstream products, quality requirements, and the pace of a continuously operating news organization.

At the same time, new work such as CNN Underscored required revenue-generating product capabilities, while the shared frontend system needed to support distinct brands — including Underscored, Travel, Business, and others — without fragmenting into unrelated implementations.

Julie led frontend engineering teams and partnered with product to rebuild the CMS and publishing platform using Clay. She helped align implementation choices with editorial and product needs, while guiding delivery across interconnected parts of the ecosystem.

Her scope also included commerce work for CNN Underscored and leadership of frontend design-system implementation. She worked with QA to strengthen UI testing and validation strategies using BrowserStack and Cypress, making quality a repeatable part of delivery across products rather than a final check on isolated pages.

The work treated editorial workflows, product surfaces, and shared frontend foundations as related concerns. Swappable themes allowed brands under the CNN umbrella — including Underscored, Travel, and Business — to express distinct visual identities while sharing components and structural conventions.

Open-source Clay provided a strong architectural base while leaving room for CNN-specific workflows and product integration. BrowserStack and Cypress helped make shared behavior and visual quality observable across products, browsers, and brand themes as the system evolved.