Taylor Sturtz
I love what I do.I'm a self-motivated full-stack software engineer that knows how to exit Vim and has an affinity for design and good vibes 🤙. Currently, I'm developing commerce system tools and services at Blizzard Entertainment.
01.
Backstory
A Bit About Me
Hello! I'm a senior software engineer living in Irvine, CA.
Early on I found myself drawn to tech; always designing and programming websites, game mods, bots, graphing calculators, etc. After college I worked as a designer for 5 years before transitioning to engineering. I've now experienced many years working in front-end and full-stack roles and collaborative agile environments across multiple industries. I enjoy what I do, I make work fun, and I empower my teammates to be successful.
I'm also a big fan of my family, soccer, tea, board games, isometric art, hiking, and plants.
02.
Expertise
Experience in Tech
Work History
Some information about each of the companies I've worked for and my role on the team. See my résumé for a concise and printable version.
Sept 2021 - Present
Senior Software Engineer
May 2020 - Sept 2021
Software Engineer
Details...
The work I do on the Blizzard commerce platform powers monetization across ABK game studios and critically impacts hundreds of millions of end users. My team proudly provides tools to manage commerce data and APIs to access that data, which are used by game clients, web shops, and more.
Additionally, I contribute to internal design systems, post to the engineering blog, formally mentor junior engineers, and helped build Zoombot™ which got second place in the Blizzard Hackathon, 2022!
Oct 2019 - May 2020
Software Engineer
Details...
Restaurant365 provides enterprise management software to over 40,000 restaurants nationwide.
Soon after starting at R365 I solved the most complex problems that were plaguing the legacy app front-end and then provided production support as needed to ensure product stability. I was also tasked with developing new functionality in their modern stack. In my short time at R365 I delivered features to enable uploading and processing of documents with optic image recognition, actionable inventory tracking, and employee records/scheduling.
May 2017 - Sept. 2019
Software Engineer
Mar 2017 - May 2017
Web Developer
Details...
Ytel offers a variety of telecommunications software solutions ranging from call center systems, to APIs (think Twilio), to automated SMS campaigns with reactive event handling (decision tree).
I started at Ytel as a web developer building marketing sites and internal apps while maintaining their respective DNS and virtual machines. In about three months I was promoted to work on Ytel's suite of software products. I led development on Ytel's modern and legacy applications and then built new tools including real-time live messaging inbox system and a complex drag and drop workflow editor.
Freelance
Mixed Media Group
July 2013 - Oct. 2016
Design Lead
June 2011 - July 2013
Designer
Details...
Mixed Media Group was a talented web and print design agency of about twelve employees at its height; a multi-faceted firm offerring design services in many different contexts.
I worked on various print design projects as needed to fulfill the needs of clients which were often coupled with websites. One of the print projects I was proud to own was the layout, printing, and shipping of 27 7-Eleven magazines to franchise owners in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Denver. When it came to web projects, I provided hi-fi mocks, interfaced directly with clients, contributed a bit of front-end code, and worked directly with developers to complete client websites.
Skill Set
Here's a bunch of technology I have a little or a ton of experience with. I am constantly learning and growing.
Domain | Technology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Design | Adobe CC
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Balsamiq
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Figma
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Programming |
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Testing | Playwright | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Postman | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Selenium | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Storybook | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Database | Firebase | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MongoDB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MySQL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Oracle | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DevOps | AWS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Docker | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Git | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Jenkins | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NGINX | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shell scripting |
03.
Showcase
Noteworthy Projects
Noteworthy Projects
taylor-sturtz-dot-com-v3
The current iteration of my developer portfolio site. Built as an opportunity to learn Svelte and with a creative desire to revamp the site.
- Svelte
- Sass
- SVG
- Vite
taylor-sturtz-dot-com-v2
The previous iteration of my developer portfolio site. A Gatsby site with a minimal and goofy aesthetic which was fun but it was time for a new one.
- React
- Gatsby
taylor-sturtz-dot-com-v1
The first iteration of my developer portfolio site. A vanilla site with jQuery for all the advantages it provided at the time.
- jQuery
zoombot
Zoombot is an IOT conference room bot for allowing remote participants to be more engaged in meetings. Took second place in the Blizzard Hackathon, 2022! My role was programming an arduino microcontroller to poll a server for incoming events, queue them up, and process them.
- C++ (Arduino)
your-team-soccer-matches
A macOS menu bar app plugin for xbar. Displays completed, upcoming, and LIVE matches as well as overall competition standings for your favorite soccer team.
- Node.js
- Shell
i-want-my-bbtv
A cross-platform mobile app for my wife (and sometimes me) 🙃: randomly choose which of our favorite TV shows or movies to rewatch.
- React Native
- Node.js
- MongoDB
wc2026-tix-scraper
Checks the world cup 2026 website every hour for changes and vigorously alerts me via slack if tickets have become available.
- Node.js
- Playwright
- Shell
realvalue
Won the LearningFuze C11/2016 hackathon and later used as a demo for prospective students. RealValue is a POC map for local data-collection and data-visualization; displays dynamic area data and ratings based on user-selections.
- Angular.js
- D3.js
- Firebase
toejam-and-earl-jam-out
A for-fun recreation of the Toe Jam and Earl™ mini-game, Jam Out in the browser.
- React
- SVG Sprites
soccer6-slackbot
An interactive slack bot to retrieve information about Soccer6's game schedules and scores. Periodic scheduled reminders sent to my soccer team's slack channel with up-to-date information.
- Go
- GoQuery
meetup_map
This hackathon project filled a feature gap in Meetup.com's UI at the time by fetching meetups via their API and plotting them on a google map.
- jQuery
- PHP
semantic-ui-react-countries
A simple open-source community CLI tool for fetching and parsing ISO-3166-1 country data for use in Semantic UI React dropdown components.
- Node.js
todo-for-you
Ah yes, the to-do app. This one is feature-rich and polished though 😉.
- Angular.js
- Firebase
home-dash
Automated custom home display system. Displays family photos, news/stocks, weather, streams/feeds, and useful Google Sheets populated data. Scripts to run it all on windows/chrome (launch, interaction detection, etc.).
- Web/APIs
- Powershell
04.
Contact
Send Me a Note
I'm currently unavailable for hire, but I'm always open to hear about new ideas from fellow human beings. So if you're good at picking out crosswalks, traffic lights, and bridges in a line-up, I'd love to hear from you! Drop me an email via the button below.
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