Hello, world. I'm

Brandon
Taylor

Data Center Technician • IT Professional • Lifelong Learner

Building robust systems by day. Studying C & Linux by night. Based in Des Moines, Iowa.

View My Work Get In Touch
brandon@beardedpanda:~

// About Me

I'm a hands-on IT professional with a passion for understanding how things work at the lowest level — from bare-metal data center hardware to the logic gates underneath the code.

Currently working at Microsoft keeping large-scale infrastructure running, while independently studying C, Linux internals, and computer science fundamentals to sharpen my technical depth.

When I'm not at a rack or behind a terminal, you'll find me camping with my family, playing guitar, or disappearing into a good book.

💻 Computer Science 🚀 Space Enthusiast 🎵 Guitarist ⛺ Camper 📚 Reader
8+ Years in IT
2+ Years at Microsoft
∞ Things to Learn

// Experience

Data Center Technician

Microsoft

Apr 2024 — Present
  • Maintain and operate large-scale enterprise data center infrastructure
  • Perform hardware replacements, rack-and-stack, and physical server provisioning
  • Monitor system health and respond to critical hardware incidents
  • Collaborate with remote engineering teams to diagnose and resolve infrastructure issues

Senior POS Support Technician

Hy-Vee

~2018 — 2024 (6 yrs)
  • Led technical support operations for point-of-sale systems across multiple store locations
  • Mentored junior technicians and developed troubleshooting documentation
  • Coordinated hardware/software upgrades with minimal downtime impact
  • Escalation point for complex POS hardware and network issues

POS Support Technician

Hy-Vee

~2016 — 2018 (2 yrs)
  • Provided first-line technical support for point-of-sale systems
  • Diagnosed and resolved hardware and software issues in retail environments
  • Performed routine maintenance and system updates on POS terminals

// Skills

💻 Systems & Infrastructure

Linux Data Center Ops Server Hardware Rack & Stack Networking Ubuntu / Debian

🔧 Development

C Bash / Shell HTML / CSS / JS Node.js Git

🔌 Tools & Platforms

Nginx Systemd SSH UFW Certbot / Let's Encrypt Fail2ban

🧠 Currently Studying

C Programming Linux Internals Computer Science Algorithms & DS

// Projects & Labs

Personal projects, homelab experiments, and learning exercises.

🏠 ● This Server

beardedpanda.cloud

Self-hosted VPS on Hostinger running Nginx, Node.js, and a custom admin portal. Fully configured with Let's Encrypt SSL, UFW firewall, and fail2ban.

Ubuntu 24.04 Nginx Node.js SSL
🔧 ● In Progress

C Projects

Low-level C programming projects focused on systems programming, memory management, and understanding how the OS works under the hood.

C Linux Systems
🚀 ● Planned

More Coming Soon

Currently cooking up new projects. Check back soon, or reach out if you want to collaborate on something interesting.

TBD

// Contact

Based in Des Moines, Iowa. Open to interesting conversations.

🏠 Location Des Moines, Iowa
💻 Currently Working Microsoft — Data Center
📖 Currently Studying C • Linux • CS