Experience, Chris Taylor

taylor.cj@gmail.com · linkedin.com/in/cege7480 · github.com/cege7480

The source of truth for this page is the master résumé (download the PDF), and the page is kept in sync with it. Where this page adds detail the résumé doesn't carry, that detail is drawn from the projects in docs/projects/.

Summary

DevOps and cloud architect turned AI-native builder and educator, with 20+ years shipping software and a decade leading cloud and developer-productivity transformations. I take teams and codebases from "nobody knows how this works" to measurable, observable, continuously delivered. For the last three years I've been doing it with agents in the loop, at a scale that shows up in the commit log rather than just the pitch deck.

The through-line is other people's effectiveness: 30+ engineers mentored into Microsoft certifications, a 900-repo organization brought onto Copilot, a 3.5-developer team taken from 12 to 42 work items a sprint in six weeks. The full record →

Skills

• AI engineering · Microsoft Agent Framework · Model Context Protocol (MCP) · Anthropic API and Claude Code · Azure AI Foundry · Vertex AI · multi-agent orchestration, A2A (agent-to-agent) and A2P (agent-to-person) · RAG and vector search (pgvector) · prompt and context engineering · GitHub Copilot administration and rollout
• Making AI provable · Langfuse tracing · batch rubric evaluators · golden and back-tested outputs · structured-output recovery from truncated responses · token cost controls and caching at the gateway
• Cloud and platform · Azure · GCP · AWS · Kubernetes (AKS/GKE) · Helm · Terraform · Dapr · KEDA · Container Apps · Cloud Run · Lambda · API Gateway · multi-region architecture
• Languages · C#/.NET · TypeScript/React · Python · PowerShell · Node · SQL
• Delivery and release engineering · GitHub Actions/GHAS/Codespaces · Azure DevOps · ArgoCD · LaunchDarkly (including session replay) · progressive delivery and dark launch · contract-first OpenAPI · Playwright
• Observability · OpenTelemetry · Prometheus · Grafana · Loki · Serilog/SEQ · Azure Monitor · Cloud Monitoring
• Identity and security · Entra ID · Okta · Authentik · Keycloak · OAuth2/OIDC · GitHub Advanced Security · Azure Firewall · Cloudflare
• Data and integration · PostgreSQL · SQL Server · Azure SQL · Cosmos · Firestore · MongoDB · Service Bus / Event Hub · Azure APIM · Power Platform and Dataverse · Salesforce/MuleSoft
• Enablement · curriculum design · adoption programs · developer onboarding · ADRs and technical standards · FinOps, including AI spend · mentoring to certification

Independent · Chicago, IL

August 2026 – present

• Building the "by Chris Taylor" tool line full time: Helix, the change-intelligence toolset (the write-up), and christaylor.ai's own agent surface, an MCP server and an A2A concierge over the site's published record.
• Interviewing for Principal/Distinguished-track engineering and Head of Developer Enablement roles.

Senior Developer II: Metafora

September 2025 – August 2026

• Primary engineer on Socket Merlin, an AI-powered support orchestration and workflow automation platform for Metafora's Socket product line. .NET / ASP.NET Core, React + TypeScript + Vite, PostgreSQL + pgvector, Redis, SSE + SignalR, Langfuse; deployed to GKE via Helm, managed with Terraform.
• Built the agent layer on Microsoft Agent Framework with Claude Sonnet, agent-to-agent (A2A) orchestration end to end, and moved LLM access off a third-party proxy onto a first-party SDK path. That removed a hop from every model call and put authentication, cost attribution, and tracing under our own control instead of a vendor's.
• Made the AI provable rather than plausible: Langfuse tracing across every agent run, a batch-mode rubric evaluator shipped to production so output is graded systematically instead of spot-checked, and knowledge-graph curation that recovers from truncated model responses. The interesting production failure is the half-finished answer, not the flatly wrong one.
• Creator of INTERLOCK, a release-orchestration control plane that assembles dependency-ordered release candidates, validates them on ephemeral environments, and promotes to production deployed-but-dark at zero traffic behind attributed feature-flag flips. Contract-first OpenAPI generating .NET and TypeScript DTOs; .NET orchestrator plus a React/Vite console.
• Creator of Cloud Topology Toolkit, spec-driven, IR-based infrastructure visualization across Terraform, Helm, live Kubernetes, and live cloud state.
• Designed the migration architecture for a large online shipping marketplace: a live production system split across AWS Lambda and Windows Servers, moving to container-based AWS deployment behind API Gateway, with LaunchDarkly (including session replay) carrying progressive exposure and OpenTelemetry preserving trace continuity across the legacy and target stacks so the two could run side by side during cutover. Same conviction as INTERLOCK: the flag decides who sees it, not the deploy.
• All the client work was transportation and logistics: each engagement folded a TMS (Transportation Management System) into the client's operations in some way, especially around LTL/FTL freight.
• Client delivery for a mid-size 3PL/4PL: carrier-egress and async rating, architecture decision records, Dapr + Azure APIM contract-driven scaffolding, release and promotion strategy on GitHub, and an AI-agent developer toolchain (code index, hooks, devcontainer).
• Stood up full-stack observability (OpenTelemetry, Serilog, SEQ, Prometheus, Grafana, Loki), along with container right-sizing and KEDA templates.
• Fronted all services with Authentik SSO carrying S2S authN/authZ, backed by any OIDC provider.
• Established test and release infrastructure from scratch: Playwright E2E, integration tests with real authentication/authorization, a unit-test coverage baseline, LaunchDarkly feature flags, an ADR framework, and secret management.
• Continued the pattern that runs through the whole record below: upskilling other engineers on AI-assisted delivery so they become measurably more effective, rather than absorbing the work myself.

Stack .NET, C#, React/TypeScript, GCP (GKE Autopilot, Vertex AI, Artifact Registry), Kubernetes/Helm, Terraform, Microsoft Agent Framework, MCP, PostgreSQL/pgvector, OpenTelemetry, GitHub Actions/ARC, Dapr, Azure APIM

Director of Software Development: Next Generation Logistics, Inc.

July 2024 – July 2025

• Brought in to replace the sole developer of twenty years who unexpectedly passed away, inheriting multiple .NET TMS versions across nine customers with zero documentation. Stabilized critical operations by reverse-engineering the systems and building a sustainable development team.
• Led a transformation achieving a 250% productivity increase in six weeks with 3.5 developers using GitHub Copilot Enterprise and the YAMAUL multi-agent framework: sprint velocity 12 → 42 work items, 95% PR success rate, 200+ zero-downtime deployments via GitHub Actions to Azure Container Apps environments.
• Architected YAMAUL, an enterprise multi-agent AI system on Azure AI Foundry Agent Service with declarative YAML configurations, Connected Agents, and Multi-Agent Workflows orchestrating the development lifecycle, with integrated vector stores for semantic search across Azure SQL.
• Established an AI gateway on Azure API Management in front of AI Foundry, with Model Context Protocol integration, reducing AI operational costs by 60%: caching, token controls, and observability across Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, and local LLMs, with Entra ID authentication and conditional access.
• Built Microsoft Teams / M365 integration on the Teams AI Toolkit and Copilot extensions with enterprise connectors, enabling natural-language access to SharePoint and Exchange, plus automated workflows via Graph API.
• Developed a new TMS on Power Platform / Dataverse with a Blazor UI on Azure Container Apps, M365 Copilot for freight queries, and Azure Service Bus for async messaging between microservices.
• Migrated 50+ repos from Azure DevOps to GitHub with Codespaces; CI/CD pipelines cut deployment time from hours to 12 minutes.
• Replaced legacy Avaya with AT&T Office@Hand integrated to Teams, Dynamics 365, and Copilot for automated call summaries in CRM.

Stack Azure APIM, Container Apps, Entra ID, MCP, GitHub Copilot Enterprise, Codespaces, AI Foundry

Architect: RouteFreight Logistics, LLC

October 2023 – April 2024

• SME for Revenova, a transportation management system built on Salesforce.
• Integrated multiple logistics technology partners via Azure API Management, Power Automate, Salesforce Flow and Apex, reducing operational expense by 50%.
• Expanded Salesforce usage with Sales Engagement (HVS), Einstein AI, Next Best Action, and Copilot; owned Salesforce agreements and administration.
• Built financial and market-trend reporting with Power BI, Salesforce, and Dataverse.
• Designed and developed a Microsoft Teams messaging extension, Outlook extension, and Teams bot via Azure Bot Framework, Azure OpenAI, the Teams AI SDK, Adaptive Cards, and Copilot.

Enterprise Architect (Principal): Coyote Logistics, LLC · Chicago, IL

September 2019 – September 2023

Public recognition

• 🗞️ Wall Street Journal: Generative AI Helping Boost Productivity of Some Software Developers · "We can code as fast as we think."
• 🎤 GitHub Galaxy 2023 keynote: featured by Inbal Shani and Thomas Dohmke · watch
• 📘 GitHub customer story: How Coyote Logistics uses GitHub
• ⚡ Cited by GitHub: "Coyote Logistics' developers reduced the time to write Terraform config files by 50% with GitHub Copilot," with the pull-quote attributed to me as Enterprise Architect

What that was built on

• Co-founded the Coyote DevOps Curriculum, the adoption engine behind everything above, mentoring 30+ engineers to modernize their practice and earn Microsoft certifications.
• Founded and led the Cloud Enablement Team, delivering cloud-native and hybrid applications under strict FinOps policy in partnership with Stackwatch/Kubecost; the program ran roughly $260K a month in Azure spend at peak.
• Led the GitHub migration of 900+ repositories from Azure DevOps, implementing GitHub Actions and GitHub Advanced Security, and driving developer productivity with GitHub Copilot.
• Architected and implemented Coyote Sandbox, Coyote's first fully automated ephemeral testing environment: a four-year skunkworks eventually greenlit to redefine how Coyote built software, with a Power Platform management front end built with 3Cloud.
• Designed a secure hybrid cloud with ExpressRoute, Azure Firewall, Azure Private DNS (split horizon), Azure Arc, Cloudflare, and hub-and-spoke Virtual Network v2.
• Implemented AKS with multiple node pools, RBAC, KEDA, Dapr, Istio, managed identities, and Azure CNI.
• Directed Azure API Management in a hybrid scenario, integrating Dynamics CRM plus hundreds of on-prem and cloud services behind OAuth2 (IdentityServer and Entra).
• Established granular application cost metrics with Kubecost, GitHub, and Azure Cost Management, leading to AI-driven cost and utilization dashboards.
• Formed a cloud engineering release team around Terraform, Infracost, and ArgoCD.
• Collaborated on a data-lake strategy across Azure Synapse, Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Dataverse, MongoDB, and on-prem SQL.
• Piloted Azure OpenAI, Vision, Speech, Language, and Document Intelligence.

DevOps Architect: Cryptocurrency Exchange · Chicago, IL

December 2018 – July 2019

• Architected and built the infrastructure for a production crypto trading platform that traded $22M in its first 48 hours.
• Designed systems for trading multiple cryptocurrency pairs and stood up blockchain node infrastructure.
• Built custom Azure dashboards and workbooks for application monitoring; collaborated on HA solutions and automated build/deployment.

Senior Consultant: Polaris Solutions · Chicago, IL

April 2013 – October 2018

• Led 15+ Azure engagements and 20+ TFS/VSTS DevOps automation engagements.
• Designed and helped build a thick-client deployment system, a single point of entry for Axis, AcuSport Retail Technology Group's all-in-one POS platform for sporting-goods retailers (now GearFire's), serving 400-500 retail customers at three to twenty-five nodes per location, most customers a single site: WiX (MSI), C# custom actions, SignalR, DAC deployment, WPF, MEF/Prism, VSTS.
• Designed a multi-channel deployment system for a healthcare client's 10,000+ locations and 80,000+ nodes (VSTS, NuGet, ASP.NET MVC/WebAPI, AngularJS, Azure AD, App Services, Chocolatey, SQL Azure); the client carried the design forward in-house.
• Interim development manager for 18 months over 23 employees (dev + QA) on the same Axis platform.
• Authored 10+ custom build/release tasks including UI connectivity to external services.

Application Developer: JPMorgan Chase · Chicago, IL

December 2007 – April 2013

• Senior developer on PaymentNet, a large-scale payment-card management system for the US Government: ASP.NET 2.0, C#, Remoting, MSMQ, IBM WMQ, IIS, SQL Server.
• Focused on observability and performance for thousands of concurrent users running complex queries over terabytes of transactional data, instrumented with CA Wily.
• Managed the corporate-wide TFS offering and led the migration from Rational ClearCase to TFS 2008.
• Enhanced ALM practice and ran performance-remediation projects.

IT Project Lead, eCommerce / EAI: The Shamrock Companies, Inc. · Buffalo Grove, IL

January 2006 – November 2007

• Created ReSource, an eCommerce and brand-management module set for DotNetNuke 4.x using C#, Pageflex, and BizTalk Server 2006.
• Implemented BizTalk Server 2006 for messaging between five order-entry systems and the Baan IV ERP.
• Implemented Team Foundation Server 2005.

Development Lead: Infogenic Systems · Peoria, IL

October 2004 – January 2006

• Developed a web-part management suite for Caterpillar Inc. (C#, WSS 2.0).
• Migrated all hosting from internal servers to a trusted provider, cutting monthly expense and improving customer relations; heavy use of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005.
• Stood up a continuous-integration environment (CruiseControl.NET, NAnt, NUnit, CVSNT) and championed test-driven development and standardized issue tracking.

Software Developer: Morton Welding · Morton, IL

April 2003 – October 2004

• Built a large management application for a music-instrument distributor in VB.NET, XML, Crystal Reports 9, and SQL Server 2000, integrated with third-party accounting software.
• Replaced Crystal Reports with SQL Reporting Services for manual and automated daily labor and process reporting.

Education

Bachelor of Science, Business Computer Systems: Bradley University, Peoria, IL · 2002 Delta Tau Delta

Certifications

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate (AZ-204): Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure
• Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP): Delivering Continuous Value with Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management

Accomplishments & community

• Recipient of the GCC MVP award for exceptional efforts resolving stability and performance defects.
• Frequent speaker at local .NET user groups, architecture panels, and conferences including QUEST QAI 2016 and Dev Up 2016.