Walker Smith

Software Engineering Lead

+1-706-577-6256 • walkerrandolphsmith@gmail.com • linkedin.com/in/walkerrandolphsmith

Software engineering leader with over ten years of experience specializing in distributed systems serving 2 billion customers and front-end architecture. Thrives on extreme ownership— across systems, teams, and outcomes. Drives strategy, aligns engineering with business goals, and cultivates high performing teams that ship with purpose.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Senior Software Engineer

Microsoft

2021 – 2025

  • Reduced content publication latency by 99%+ by leading the design and rollout of an event-driven system across five teams
  • Improved Lighthouse scores from 48 to 100 and cut 5s off page load time by rearchitecting the platform with Incremental Static Regeneration, driving gains in SEO and user experience
  • Led a team of six to develop AI-powered tooling, expanding content coverage and preserving Microsoft’s voice and editorial standards, resulting in hundreds of uses within the first two weeks post-launch
  • Scaled platform from hundreds to thousands of contributors by implementing governed, open contribution model
  • Led 50 engineers, driving best practices and cultivating a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement through work-in-progress sessions
  • Reduced rollbacks by 30% by architecting ephemeral environments, enabling full end-to-end testing across a distributed system
  • Enabled unit testing for 44,000 previously untestable lines of code, covering 80% of core user flows, thereby enhancing the testability and reliability of flagship platform features
  • Reduced CI duration 600%, saving approximately 1,300 developer hours annually, enhancing deployment speed, and accelerating feature delivery across engineering teams

Senior Software Engineer

digital.ai

2018 – 2021

  • Eliminated week-long manual regression cycles across three teams, saving 90 engineering hours per release by implementing automated visual regression and end-to-end testing, boosting release confidence
  • Coached teams across two products and served as subject matter expert in React, Redux, and front-end best practices, elevating core competencies to drive technical growth
  • Unlocked hundreds of critical enterprise integrations used by over 50% of Fortune 500 by pioneering scalable webhooks feature

Software Engineer

smash.gg

2017 – 2018

  • Transitioned company from in-person to online esports, re-positioning as market leader and unlocking high growth revenue stream by leading development of 'Event Check-in' feature
  • Defined and established Software Engineer in Test role, hiring two engineers to automate critical user flows with Cypress, boosting product reliability
  • Introduced and coached agile practices to 30-person team, enabling effective feature prioritization to meet major event deadlines and secure funding rounds
  • Eliminated human error in Firebase security rules by introducing Bolt Compiler, automating critical security layer and enhancing system reliability and development workflows

Software Engineer

VersionOne

2014 – 2017

  • Increased developer velocity by 15% by spearheading integration of React, Redux, Webpack, and LESS into Continuum product, modernizing the tech stack and streamlining workflows
  • Reduced front-end development costs by 40% as core contributor to component library, streamlining development across two products
  • Saved 3,000+ developer hours and boosted productivity by implementing hot module replacement

EDUCATION

  • Columbus State University — M.S. Machine Learning

    M.S. in Applied Computer Science: A.I.& Machine Learning Track Award

    Present

  • Columbus State University — B.S. Computer Science

    2014

PUBLICATIONS

“Deriving Entrepreneurial Insights from Open-Ended and Unstructured Survey Data Using NLP Techniques,” MDPI, November 2024

OPEN SOURCE & COMMUNITY

  • Contributed to Cypress, JsonEditor, Kafdrop, VersonOne SDKs
  • Presented at React ATL (4K+ member group) to an audience of 50+ engineers, covering functional programming and facilitating community-driven discussion
  • Conducted a hands-on workshop on Redux at Connect.Tech, a major industry conference, training 50+ engineers in state management best practices and real-world application design

SKILLS

  • Programming Languages: TypeScript, C#, Python
  • Front-End Technologies: React, Next.js, GraphQL
  • Cloud & Infrastructure: Azure, Kubernetes, Bicep, Docker, NGINX
  • Messaging & Event Streaming: Azure Service Bus, RabbitMQ, Kafka
  • Databases: SQL Server, Azure Cosmos DB, MongoDB
  • Testing Frameworks: Cypress, Jest
  • Version Control & CI/CD: Git, Azure DevOps, Github Actions
  • Machine Learning: Azure OpenAI, pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, skfuzzy