Nova Patch (they/them), Dublin, Ireland.

Director-level product and localization specialist with 20+ years of experience leading global web platforms, multilingual product capabilities, and cross-functional teams. Drawing on a deep technical foundation, I lead strategy and cross-functional delivery of internationalization systems and AI-enabled localization workflows to support global product readiness.

My background combines product management, software engineering, experimentation, translation strategy, vendor ownership, and cross-functional delivery. I bring a team-first approach to leadership, with a focus on creating clarity, solving practical problems, and helping teams deliver measurable outcomes for international customers.

Experience

Shutterstock, Dublin and New York

Director, Internationalization & Localization, 2018–present

I lead internationalization and localization across Shutterstock’s global products, brands, and content platforms, with responsibility for localization strategy, multilingual product capabilities, translation operations, vendor partnerships, budget management, AI-enabled localization, and international market readiness.

My role sits at the intersection of product, engineering, content, legal, marketing, operations, and regional business needs. I work with teams across the company to build scalable local experiences, support growth in international markets, and ensure that global product launches are ready for users across languages, regions, and cultures.

Key areas of work include:

  • Internationalization and localization roadmap ownership for products operating in 30+ languages across more than 150 countries
  • Language expansion across Shutterstock, Pond5, PremiumBeat, Contributor, search, API, prompt, metadata, and content workflows
  • AI-enabled localization, including multilingual prompt translation, model-routing experimentation, AI translation workflows, and internal AI adoption
  • Metadata localization at scale, including machine translation of content metadata across 25 languages
  • Multilingual search and discovery, local commerce, pricing, checkout, and international experimentation
  • Vendor strategy, translation operations, linguistic quality, budget governance, and cost optimization
  • Team-first leadership across product managers, translation managers, localization specialists, contingent workers, vendors, and cross-functional partners
  • Acquired-brand integration into shared localization services, enabling market expansion and operational efficiency
  • Inclusive workplace and product practices through long-standing leadership in Shutterstock Prism, the LGBTQ+ employee resource group

Principal Engineer, International, 2016–2018

Served as product and technical owner for internationalization during my transition from Engineering into Product. Owned the international roadmap across product, UX, engineering, and marketing while also taking on translation operations, vendor management, budget ownership, and people management as business needs evolved.

Proposed and led the launch of Traditional Chinese, coordinating dependencies across twelve teams. Developed internationalization standards and guidance for locale-aware systems, global UX, translated content, multilingual search, and international product launches.

Software Engineer, International, 2012–2016

First hire for Shutterstock’s International team in the pre-IPO company. Built foundational internationalization, localization, multilingual search, and global commerce capabilities as Shutterstock expanded into new markets.

Launched ten new languages across Shutterstock’s websites and search engine, including Korean, which became my most commercially successful language launch. Later took on lead responsibilities for the International Search team, including roadmap ownership, sprint ceremonies, hiring support, mentoring, and internationalization advocacy.

Experian / CheetahMail, New York

Senior Software Engineer, 2010–2012

Helped build the modern internationalized web platform for CheetahMail, a web-based email marketing platform acquired by Experian, with a focus on Unicode, character encoding, localization readiness, and scalable platform improvements. Collaborated across offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Kuala Lumpur; mentored junior developers and authored technical documentation.

NSK Inc. / Touch Ahead Software, Boston

Senior Software Engineer, 2009–2010

Led open-source technology development for client-facing web and data projects, focusing on web application architecture, database workflows, automation, and practical technical standards.

Application Developer, 2007–2009

Developed web applications, database tools, and data-processing workflows for client and internal projects, with a focus on open-source technologies and pragmatic software delivery.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, DC

System Administrator & Developer, 2004–2006

Managed and developed web platforms, internal tools, and server infrastructure for a nonprofit organization focused on nutrition, medicine, research, and advocacy.

Information Technology Manager, 2002–2004

Managed IT operations, web systems, and internal technology support during a period of organizational growth.

Green America, Washington, DC

Webmaster, 2001–2002

Webmaster and search engineer for Co-op America, the National Green Pages, and the Social Investment Forum.

Memberships

  • Content Authenticity Initiative, Individual Member, 2025–present
  • Unicode Consortium, Lifetime Individual Member, 2013–present; contributor to the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository

Talks

Frequent speaker on inclusive localization, multilingual product design, and global software systems, including recent talks at LocWorld Dublin and Malmö, plus presentations at the Internationalization & Unicode Conference, OSCON, NY Tech Week, and AWS Loft. See Talks for a fuller list.

Languages

Native English speaker with long-standing experience studying and using Esperanto, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Irish.