Taylor Pentz

Senior .NET Azure Backend Engineer with 10+ years delivering distributed SaaS, API and full-stack enterprise products using .NET 6-8, ASP.NET Core 6-8, C# 10-12, Azure; combines architecture, legacy modernization, cloud delivery, observability, secure API design, production debugging, performance tuning, and technical leadership to turn complex requirements into maintainable platforms that improve reliability, release confidence, and business outcomes.

Senior Software Engineer at SumatoSoft (2023-04 – 2025-12)

• Led senior-level architecture and delivery for.NET Azure - Backend Engineer initiatives using.NET 6-8, ASP.NET Core 6-8, C# 10-12, Azure, translating complex product requirements into maintainable services, interfaces, automation, and operational controls for production SaaS and enterprise workloads.
• Modernized legacy components by separating tightly coupled modules, strengthening API boundaries, upgrading supported libraries, and introducing clearer deployment patterns around.NET 6-8, ASP.NET Core 6-8, C# 10-12, Azure, reducing migration risk while preserving customer-facing behavior.
• Designed and implemented new capabilities across APIs, asynchronous workflows, data persistence, caching, and event-driven integration, with contract validation and idempotent processing to keep cross-service behavior predictable during retries and partial failures.
• Profiled production bottlenecks and reduced p95 API latency by 32% through query tuning, caching, asynchronous processing, and better service-level instrumentation, combining application telemetry with database, network, runtime, and dependency measurements instead of relying on synthetic benchmarks alone.
• Diagnosed difficult production incidents involving timeout chains, duplicate writes, stale caches, race conditions, contract mismatches, and inefficient database access paths, then added targeted safeguards, retry policies, circuit-breaking or recovery paths, and regression tests so recurring failures could be detected before release.
• Automated delivery through Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD, adding environment validation, health checks, progressive rollout practices, rollback procedures, and infrastructure reviews that improved repeatability across cloud deployments.
• Expanded OpenTelemetry tracing, structured logging, metrics, dashboards, and alerting around high-value workflows, giving engineering and operations teams faster evidence for root-cause analysis, capacity decisions, and release verification.
• Partnered with product, QA, security, DevOps, and business stakeholders to prioritize architecture debt and new features, review technical tradeoffs, mentor engineers through code/design reviews, and keep delivery aligned with measurable user and operational outcomes.
• Used Cursor, Claude, and GitHub Copilot for AI-assisted code exploration, targeted refactoring, test generation, documentation, and rapid prototyping while validating generated changes through peer review, automated tests, security checks, and production-quality engineering standards.

Software Engineer at Hexaview Technologies Inc. (2018-07 – 2023-03)

• Built and supported production distributed SaaS, API and full-stack enterprise products with.NET Framework 4.7-4.8 /.NET Core 2.1-.NET 6, C# 7-10, Azure, evolving monolithic and early service-oriented applications toward clearer domain boundaries, reusable modules, and API-driven integrations as scale and product complexity increased.
• Executed incremental modernization from older frameworks and build pipelines to supported releases, replacing fragile shared code with tested interfaces and staged migrations so teams could ship features without high-risk rewrite projects.
• Delivered customer and internal features spanning REST APIs, background jobs, messaging, caching, search, and relational data, with validation and backward-compatible contracts that protected existing consumers during iterative releases.
• Resolved recurring production problems including timeout chains, duplicate writes, stale caches, race conditions, contract mismatches, and inefficient database access paths, using logs, metrics, traces, query plans, thread or process diagnostics, and reproducible test cases to isolate root causes before implementing narrowly scoped fixes.
• Improved deployment consistency with Docker, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and cloud-managed services, standardizing configuration, secrets handling, environment checks, and rollback steps across development, staging, and production.
• Expanded unit, integration, contract, and end-to-end coverage around critical workflows, introduced release gates for high-risk changes, and worked with QA to convert escaped defects into durable regression suites and engineering checklists.
• Applied performance and architecture improvements that reduced p95 API latency by 27% through query tuning, caching, asynchronous processing, and better service-level instrumentation, validating results with production telemetry and load tests while balancing throughput, reliability, maintainability, and infrastructure cost.
• Collaborated with senior engineers, product managers, QA, DevOps, and security partners on design reviews, estimation, incident follow-up, technical documentation, and staged releases for enterprise customers with evolving requirements.

Software Developer at SimbirSoft Company (2015-03 – 2018-06)

• Developed web and backend solutions using.NET Framework 4.5.1-4.7, C# 5-7, Azure, focusing on maintainable application structure, relational data access, integration services, and incremental delivery for business workflows that were moving away from manual and legacy processes.
• Refactored older modules with duplicated business logic and tightly coupled database access, introducing service boundaries, reusable validation, clearer error handling, and safer upgrade paths compatible with the technology available during 2015-2018.
• Investigated production defects such as inconsistent records, timeout-prone integrations, stale caches, race conditions, and browser or runtime edge cases, reproducing failures locally and adding regression coverage before releasing fixes.
• Implemented new workflow, reporting, search, API, and data-processing features with careful schema changes, index tuning, input validation, and compatibility checks so new functionality did not break existing downstream consumers.
• Introduced stronger automated testing, structured application logging, deployment checklists, and code-review practices that improved defect visibility and made releases more predictable across shared development and QA environments.
• Optimized application and database hot paths and reduced p95 API latency by 21% through query tuning, caching, asynchronous processing, and better service-level instrumentation, using profiling, query analysis, batching, caching, and reduced network round trips appropriate to the platform constraints of the period.
• Worked directly with business users and senior engineers to translate ambiguous operational requirements into implementable stories, document behavior, estimate technical risk, and deliver maintainable improvements in small production-safe increments.

Software Developer Intern at Microsoft (2014-08 – 2015-02)

• Supported data-driven application development with C#,.NET Framework 4.5, JavaScript ES5, SQL Server 2012/2014, and REST-style service integrations, contributing production code under senior-engineer guidance during an early-career software engineering internship.
• Reproduced and fixed defects involving inconsistent validation, null-handling failures, duplicate records, slow queries, and brittle UI workflows, documenting root causes and verifying corrections across development and test environments.
• Implemented reporting, search, filtering, workflow, API, and database enhancements with careful input validation and backward-compatible behavior, building practical foundations in enterprise application design and data handling.
• Prepared data-correction scripts, SQL queries, and validation rules for legacy records, then reviewed results with experienced engineers before controlled execution to avoid unintended updates or referential-integrity problems.
• Added focused unit and integration tests around selected business rules and data transformations, participated in release verification, and helped QA reproduce issues with concrete steps and representative test data.
• Built disciplined habits around source control, code review, debugging, technical documentation, secure data handling, and incremental delivery while collaborating with senior engineers and QA on stable releases for data-intensive application modules.

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2010 – 2014)