Taylor Johnson
- becker63.digital
- github.com/becker63
- (220) 246-8386
- New Albany, Ohio, USA
- johnsontaylor6320@gmail.com
Summary
Infrastructure-focused engineer specializing in authentication systems, layered architectures, and reproducible environments. Experienced in reverse-engineering production systems, tracing cross-service failure modes, and shifting operational ambiguity into structured, inspectable tooling.
Experience
- Security & Infrastructure Documentation Intern
- Ohio Supercomputer Center
- Oct 2024 – Nov 2025
- Reverse-engineered and documented a 100k+ LOC production HPC platform supporting ~2,100 academic sites
- Analyzed embedded Apache and Nginx subsystems implementing layered MVC-style configuration over authentication infrastructure
- Traced OpenID Connect → JWT → LDAP mappings across Apache modules, Nginx (per-user process isolation), and Lua auth hooks
- Built Docker-based local reproduction of production auth stack to reason about IAM flows without privileged access
- Designed security test scenarios identifying double URL encoding with RCE-adjacent implications
- Proposed reproducible dependency management (Nix / asdf) to mitigate CI flakiness and environment drift
- Systems-Oriented Frontend Engineer
- Tarigma Corporation (now GE Vernova)
- 2021 – 2023
- Architected state coordination layer for a real-time electrical grid incident response platform
- Synchronized multiple live relay data feeds while preserving operator trust and temporal consistency
- Integrated Recoil (global state) with react-mosaic (dynamic windowed layouts) for high-density diagnostic workflows
- Extended and maintained Chart.js fork to support draggable temporal annotations for grid event analysis
- Implemented and rendered COMTRADE-based relay data pipelines used in electrical disturbance analysis
- Programming Instructor & Technical Operator
- STEMTree
- 2021 – 2023
- Taught Python, JavaScript, React, and core CS reasoning to students ages 10–16
- Managed classroom infrastructure (router configuration, Pi-hole filtering, device administration)
- Served as on-site technical operator responsible for uptime and system reliability
Projects
Infrastructure & Reproducibility
- Built Kubernetes/Crossplane homelab modeling infrastructure as typed declarative resources
- Reproduced complex deployments locally via Docker to enable controlled iteration and inspection
Systems & Security
- Designed structured fuzzing harness for libnftnl (netfilter) using microVM isolation and sanitizer instrumentation
- Focused on invariant encoding and semantic boundary exploration over blind fuzzing
Developer Tooling
- Implemented typed SDK generation and hermetic build workflows using Buck2, Nix, Python, and Go
- Emphasized early failure detection and phase-aware computation in CI workflows
Skills
Languages: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Nim, Bash
Systems & Infrastructure: Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Crossplane, CI/CD, Networking, IAM, Security Testing
Strengths: Authentication tracing, layered systems reasoning, reproducibility, cross-service debugging, structured interface design
Education
- Computer Science Coursework
- Ohio State University, Newark
- Cybersecurity Program
- Eastland–Fairfield Career & Technical Schools
Certifications
CompTIA Security+
CompTIA Network+
TestOut Network Pro
Awards
PicoCTF (Carnegie Mellon University) — Placed 57/1329
teams (2024)
SkillsUSA Cybersecurity (State) — Second Place
USCC Cyber Challenge — Summer Program Admission