matt-taylor.tech

Experience

Two decades of building systems: for employers, for customers, and for myself.

Two parallel tracks. Day jobs on the left, founder ventures on the right, each in reverse chronological order. They run alongside each other on purpose: the operational discipline at work and the product discipline on the side reinforce each other.

Day jobs

  1. IT Manager → IT Director · National food brokerage

    Oct 2022 – Present · Charlotte, NC · Hybrid

    Hired as IT Manager in Oct 2022, promoted to IT Director effective May 16, 2024. National food brokerage that scaled from ~650 users / 40 offices in 2024 to more than 1,000 users / 80+ sites by 2026 via acquisitions and MSP-to-internal absorption. Hands-on the whole time.

    • Architecting an internal AI-augmented IT operations platform: Python + Supabase tying the IT team's source systems (Freshservice, Microsoft Graph, ScreenConnect, Meraki, Bitdefender, Action1) into one analyzable store, exposed as governed Cowork plugins and an @claude ticket-note agent with confirm-gated actions. Supabase schema live; plugins in use.
    • Shipped the Freshservice reporting layer: same Freshservice API into both a Microsoft Fabric / Power BI track for executives and a SQLite-cache + Claude skill track for the IT team. 14,168 tickets, 4,000+ assets, 242 KB articles backing the data.
    • Authored the 76-script internal Microsoft 365 PowerShell admin library (identity, security, Defender, Intune, Teams, SharePoint, audit), the Internal IT Documentation Library (52 Python-generated infrastructure docs), and the cross-platform Client Manager DL automation bridging Power Automate to Exchange Online via PowerShell.
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  2. IT Manager · Regional HVAC business

    Apr 2011 – Oct 2022 · Charlotte, NC

    Built and ran the entire IT stack for a 125-user, 3-location HVAC business across an 11.5-year tenure. Network, identity, M365, monitoring, custom apps, plus the line-of-business platform work that moved field service from paper to iPads.

    • Designed the network end to end: routers, switches, firewalls, site-to-site VPNs across 3 offices, hybrid Active Directory + Office 365 with Exchange Online.
    • Drove the 2014 rollout of Acowin (third-party HVAC service management platform), replacing ACOMARC on SCO OpenServer Unix. Vendor handled the data conversion; project management, cutover coordination, validation, legacy decommission, training, and ongoing admin were mine.
    • 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.
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  3. HVAC Mechanic, Service Tech, then Supervisor · HVAC trade (three employers)

    2001 – 2011 · North Carolina

    A decade in the trade before IT. Started in new construction, moved through residential and light-commercial service on systems up to 30 tons, then stood up a brand-new HVAC division as the company's licensed mechanical contractor.

    • Hold the NC H-3-I Mechanical Contractors License, maintained current to this day. Served as the mechanical-contractor qualifier for a new BPI Gold Star HVAC division.
    • NATE certified in Heat Pump, Gas, Oil, and Air Distribution. EPA Section 608 Universal. BPI Building Analyst and Envelope Professional.
    • Designed systems with ACCA Manuals J, D, S, N, and Q. Produced mechanical layouts and load calcs in AutoCAD and Wrightsoft.
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Founder ventures

  1. Founder & Operator · Matt's Volleyball League

    Jan 2023 – Present · Cornelius, NC · Hybrid

    Recreational league I founded and operate. 150–200 players per season, 4 seasons per year. Built the platform, the brand, and the operating playbook myself.

    • Wrote VolleyballEngine: 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.
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  2. Founder & Owner · After Hours Data Systems

    2014 – Present · Remote · LLC formed 2021

    Self-taught cross-platform mobile dev across three platform generations. EPA 608 Practice on iOS and Android, in maintenance mode today.

    • App Inventor (2014) → Thunkable (2018) → Flutter (current). The 2018 rebuild and first iOS release is what inflected revenue.
    • Built ~20 experimental Android apps in the App Inventor era; killed the 19 that weren't earning, concentrated on the one product with market fit.
    • Companion Python tooling for source-question scraping, deduplication, and ingestion into the app's question bank.
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