Stan Taylor

19217 Kennemer Drive, Pflugerville, Texas 78660
(512) 826-4759 · stantaylor@gmail.com

Summary of Skills and Experience

• Software quality leadership: Extensive experience in software quality assurance, serving in hands-on leadership roles, including architect, lead, and management (up to twelve direct reports and offshore team members/contractors)
• Test automation: Extensive experience developing test automation, including Cypress, Selenium WebDriver, JMeter, Cucumber, Gherkin, SauceLabs, BrowserStack, Appium, Java/JUnit, Protractor
• Current programming languages and technologies: Java, Node.js/JavaScript, Groovy, SQL
• Database systems: Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Cassandra
• Source code control: Git, including GitHub, Bitbucket
• Continuous integration: Jenkins, Bamboo, BitBucket pipelines
• Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, MacOS, UNIX
• Cloud: Extensive experience with AWS deployments, test environments and CI/CD
• Other programming languages and technologies: UNIX Shell, Ruby, Perl, PHP, SOAP web services

Professional Experience

QA Engineering Manager

VictorFi

Remote

January, 2024 to present

• Manage quality assurance staff in the US and Poland
• Design and implement processes for software quality that meet company goals
• Design and implement automated testing strategy, framework and tests
• Manage performance and load testing initiative

Staff Software Development Engineer in Test

Netspend

Austin, TX

January, 2023 to January, 2024

• Develop automated tests in Java and Groovy for applications with RESTful APIs in a BDD/cucumber-based test framework
• Create Selenium-based automated tests for Angular- and React-based web and hybrid mobile applications
• Manage AWS-based cloud and on-premises test environments
• Review pull requests for test automation code from other SDETs
• Full CI/CD integration with automated test runs upon code push, etc
• Technologies used:
  • REST API automation: RestAssured, Groovy WebClient, karate
  • UI automation: Selenium WebDriver (groovy/Java)
  • CI/CD: AWS test environments, BitBucket, Bamboo, Jenkins
  • Test environments: AWS and on-presmises
  • Miscellaneous: Postman, SQL, cassandra, kafka

Quality Engineering Manager

LendFlow

Remote, US

May, 2022 to January, 2023

• Oversaw a team of QA engineering professionals, including up to five direct reports and six contractors
• Developed comprehensive hiring criteria and job descriptions to attract top talent
• Designed and implemented key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure individual QA staff performance and overall quality metrics
• Provided technical leadership and guidance for the creation and maintenance of automated test suites using industry-standard tools such as Cypress and Selenium, with a focus on UI and RESTful API testing
• Wrote code to develop automated tests and automation frameworks using Cypress and Selenium in JavaScript
• Determined the appropriate tests to automate and supervised the automation process to ensure high-quality results
• Collaborated with DevOps teams to determine optimal execution of automated test suites in continuous integration (CI) pipelines at different stages of the development/release process
• Managed and maintained AWS-based test and CI/CD environments to ensure efficient and reliable testing processes.
• Technologies used:
  • Test automation: Selenium WebDriver (JavaScript), Cypress
  • CI/CD: Full CI/CD integration with BitBucket Cloud, BitBucket pipelines, AWS-based test environments, tests run at code push, etc
  • Miscellaneous: SQL, Postman

IT Operations Manager

Netspend

Remote, US

March, 2021 to May, 2022

• Managed a 24/7 on-call operations team that supported a PCI-compliant cardholder production environment that handled millions of users and tens of millions of financial transactions per day
• Recruited, trained and managed Linux sysadmin and application monitoring staff in the US (7) and India (5)
• Maintained Linux production infrastructure, including OS patching, vulnerability remediation, upgrading
• Developed and managed the production monitoring strategy, tooling, and staff
• Negotiated and managed tooling vendor contracts
• Managed and escalated production incidents, perform post-mortems and write RCAs
• Served as the principal point of contact between the operations team and business partners
• Compiled and presented availability metrics to management and business partners

Quality Architect

Netspend

Austin, Texas

January, 2019 to March, 2021

• Designed and executed quality-related processes and tools for a 200-employee development organization across multiple locations in the US and India
• Oversaw and maintained an end-to-end automation framework in Groovy/Cucumber that supported 40+ applications, containing over 20,000 tests, encompassing:
• • Web and hybrid mobile UI automation utilizing Selenium and Cypress
  • REST API automation using RestAssured
  • Legacy Java applications
• Architected on-premises and AWS-based test and CI infrastructure for running large suites of end-to-end tests daily, and evaluating and publishing the test results
• Acted as the product manager to an automation infrastructure team responsible for all aspects of end-to-end test automation and reporting
• Coordinated with management and personnel to ensure that comparable processes and tools are adopted in all development sites in the US and India
• Designed and executed quality metrics to evaluate the success of quality initiatives
• Worked with management to upgrade the programming skill sets of QA engineers
• Developed hiring standards for QA personnel, drafted job descriptions, evaluated resumes and candidates, and worked with managers in staffing the team

Front-end Infrastructure Engineer

Netspend

Austin, Texas

March, 2018 to December, 2018

• Developed and tested migration of cordova-based hybrid mobile app from serving embedded files to files from a web server
• Developed proof-of-concept and initial code for using JavaScript-based UIs in EBX data management software, allowing UI developers to participate in EBX development

Front-end Test Automation Developer

Netspend

Austin, Texas

November, 2014 to March, 2018

• Developed and managed an automated testing framework for web and mobile application UI testing:
• • Selenium WebDriver- and Appium-based tests using the webdriver.io node.js Javascript bindings
  • Multiple device and browser testing with SauceLabs and BrowserStack integration, including iOS and Android hybrid mobile apps
  • BDD (cucumber) framework which allowed non-programming QA engineers to write new automated tests
  • Reusable steps that allow the test creator to specify attributes for identifying UI objects
  • Simplified page-object-like central repository of element identifiers
  • REST API calls to fetch and create test data and to interact with SauceLabs' API
  • Direct database calls to fetch and create test data
  • Integrated automated tests into Bamboo and Jenkins continuous integration for nightly execution
  • Tests used screenshots, compared to baselines to verify consistent layout and formatting
  • The same UI tests can be run against web and hybrid mobile app deployments of product code
• Managed daily reviews of automated test run results
• Trained and advised other QA engineers on writing automated tests
• Conducted code reviews
• Consulted with business analysts and management about testing strategies and priorities
• Helped to migrate front-end tests from the JavaScript framework to a Groovy-based framework:
• Trained automation team staff on how to evaluate front-end automated test results efficiently
• Evaluated testing services (SauceLabs, AppliTools), recommended purchase and figured out licensing needs
• Helped offshore QA engineers in India and Colombia be more productive by trying to make myself a non-threatening on-site reference for them to ask questions
• Coached (onshore and offshore) QA engineers on how to diagnose problems and on strategies to get help more effectively
• Started and run a code management guild to discuss and implement process and technology changes related to code management
• Helped to systematize and make QA engineer candidate evaluation more effective:
• Created general job description for front-end and later, full-stack QA engineers and helped HR to understand the requirements
• Created HackerRank test for full-stack QA engineers, allowing HR to validate candidates' resume claims more effectively before passing candidates off for phone screens
• Performed phone screens for full-stack QA engineering candidates

Quality Engineering Manager

Rapid7

Austin, Texas

May, 2013 to September, 2014

• Managed quality engineering program for development of the Metasploit penetration testing software
• Assessed manual test coverage and plan and coordinate the creation of automated tests (web UI, REST API, proprietary API)
• Hired and supervised QE team members
• Planned VMWare ESX test lab needs and supervised implementation by engineering services team
• Identified future automated testing needs, scope, plan and supervised their creation
• Created REST API tests using ruby test-client gem
• Created web UI tests using cucumber, capybara, gherkin, Selenium WebDriver (tests written in ruby)
• Worked with engineering services team to run tests in continuous integration environment (Jenkins) and report on results
• Analyzed continuous integration needs, and developed and implemented test tagging strategy so that different tests were run at appropriate times
• Coordinate with customer support to prioritize and process customer bug issues through the development process

Details for previous employment are available on request

Education

• Ph.D., Translation Studies/German Cultural Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
• B.A., German, The University of Texas at Austin

Languages

• Native speaker of English
• Near-native fluency in German

Interests

• Commissioner, City of Pflugerville, Texas, Parks & Recreation Commission