matt-taylor.tech

Experience

The systems I've run, and the things I've built.

Fifteen years engineering Microsoft platforms, identity, infrastructure, endpoints, automation, and integrations across regional and national environments. The title progression reaches IT Director, but the work remains hands-on. Alongside that career, I've built software products and operating systems for two businesses of my own. The timeline covers both tracks, plus the decade in the HVAC trade that taught me to troubleshoot under pressure and work from real constraints.

IT roles

  1. IT Manager → IT Director · National food brokerage

    Oct 2022 to Present · Charlotte, NC · Hybrid

    Senior hands-on engineer for a national organization of more than 1,000 employees across 80+ locations. Hired as IT Manager and promoted to IT Director while retaining direct ownership across Microsoft cloud, identity, security, endpoints, infrastructure, automation, and service operations.

    • Operate hybrid Active Directory and Entra ID, Microsoft 365, Intune, Defender XDR, Windows Server, Hyper-V, RDS, networking, backup, monitoring, and recovery across a multi-site estate.
    • Build PowerShell, Python, Graph, Azure Automation, Azure Functions, and Power Automate integrations across identity, endpoint, CRM, finance, data, and service platforms.
    • Automate joiner, mover, and leaver workflows from heterogeneous HR inputs through Entra ID, licensing, groups, access policy, endpoint targeting, and downstream services, with approval retained at control points.
    • Build governed AI and Model Context Protocol integrations across operational systems, with identity-based authorization and explicit confirmation for state-changing actions.
    • Standardize inherited platforms and operating practices into repeatable landing zones for identity, endpoints, networks, telephony, service management, documentation, and acquisition integration.
    Read more →

  2. IT Manager · Regional HVAC business

    Apr 2011 to Oct 2022 · Charlotte, NC

    Built and ran the standardized technology platform for a 125-user, three-office, three-brand HVAC business across an 11.5-year tenure. One supported stack across identity, business-grade endpoints, Microsoft 365, networking, servers, backup, phones, mobile devices, monitoring, documentation, and acquisition integration.

    • Turned consumer hardware and disconnected systems into a shared operating model, then brought Nicholson and Melton onto the underlying platform while preserving their customer-facing brands.
    • Designed the network end to end: routers, switches, firewalls, site-to-site VPNs across 3 offices, hybrid Active Directory + Office 365 with Exchange Online.
    • Ran the modernization that moved the company off a single SCO OpenServer Unix box with no domain and no central identity: Windows Server on Hyper-V with SQL Server, Active Directory built from scratch, an Office 365 migration, a network refresh to match, and iPads with MDM that took field technicians off paper. Selected the replacement service platform; the vendor did the data conversion.
    • Three-layer observability: PRTG primary monitor + InfluxDB time-series + Grafana dashboards + custom bash SNMP collectors. Custom web and mobile apps, digital signage on the office floor, and the company's LMS deployment.
    Read more →

  3. HVAC Mechanic, Service Tech, then Contractor · HVAC Contractor

    2001 to 2011 · North Carolina

    A decade in the trade before IT: service management against SLAs, project work on new builds and system design, systematic troubleshooting under real time pressure, capacity planning against real constraints. The systems changed since; the discipline didn't.

    • ITIL before I knew the word: a dispatch queue prioritized by severity, contracted response times, per-site equipment and service history, and recurring failures promoted from repeat incidents into permanent fixes.
    • Projects ranging from four hours to multi-month builds, one lifecycle at every scale: scope, estimate, procure against lead time, sequence dependencies, handle change orders, commission, close out.
    • Start with the documentation: schematics, ladder diagrams, sequence of operation. Learn how the system should behave, then find where reality diverges. Root cause over presenting symptom.

Founder ventures

  1. Founder & Operator · Matt's Volleyball League

    Jan 2023 to Present · Cornelius, NC · Hybrid

    Recreational league I founded and operate. Built the platform, brand, communications automation, and operating playbook myself.

    • Wrote Volleyball Engine: Next.js + TypeScript platform deployed to Cloudflare Workers via OpenNext. Generates schedules imported into Teamlinkt, runs brackets, calculates contractor revenue splits.
    • mattsvolleyball.com on Astro, tapping Teamlinkt APIs to surface live league data on the public site.
    • Tested with Playwright (E2E) and Vitest. Custom tournament algorithms (shuffle format, balanced-team draft) as standalone TypeScript modules.
    Read more →

  2. Founder & Owner · After Hours Data Systems

    2014 to Present · Remote · LLC formed 2021

    Built a mobile app business with over 50,000 lifetime app sales on iOS and Android. Now maintained in Flutter with minimal ongoing effort.

    • Started with around 20 apps, unpublished the 19 unprofitable ones, and focused on the product that went on to exceed 50,000 lifetime app sales.
    • Expanded from Android to iOS, then migrated to Flutter and Dart to maintain both platforms from one codebase.
    • Built companion Python tooling for content collection, deduplication, and ingestion.
    Read more →

That’s the whole timeline. If any of it lines up with what you’re building, get in touch →