Senior software engineer

Tayden Flitcroft

I’m a Software Engineer.

I build web and mobile products for people who expect them to work every time. At Best Buy, that means owning high-traffic customer journeys, sorting through messy problems, and helping teams ship with confidence.

5+years at scaleweb and mobile at Best Buy
20+engineers on the teamworking across disciplines
1sthackathon winBest Collaborative Tool
100+students taughtonline safety and privacy

Best Buy · 2021 to now

From associate engineer to senior engineer.

I joined Best Buy as an associate engineer in 2021. Since then, I’ve grown through four roles while working on customer-facing web and mobile products used by millions of people.

Sep 2026 — now

Best Buy

Senior Software Engineer

Promoted after moving through three earlier engineering roles at Best Buy. I now take on the ambiguous work: shaping plans, finding the right technical path, and helping teams get it over the line.

Feb 2023 — Sep 2026

Best Buy

Software Engineer II

Owned Trade-In and Fulfillment work across BestBuy.com and mobile, using React, React Native, and TypeScript on customer journeys where reliability and performance carry a real business cost.

Feb 2021 — Feb 2023

Best Buy

Associate Engineer → Software Engineer I

Learned the realities of a large production codebase: shipping in small pieces, reviewing carefully, testing the edges, and working across teams without losing sight of the customer problem.

After-hours projects

Things I’ve made on my own time.

Some solve problems around my house. Some started as a joke. All of them gave me a reason to learn something new and actually ship it.

Published iOS app

Tabletop Pal

01

A tabletop companion with game-specific scorekeeping, synchronized scores, and link or QR invites so players can follow the same game.

What made it interestingTook a personal product through App Store release, combining scoring, saved games, and table-ready utilities in one app.

  • iOS

API platform

Global Backend

02

A Node.js and TypeScript service that became the shared API layer behind multiple personal products, from portfolio delivery to Pokédex data.

What made it interestingDesigned one reusable backend instead of repeating infrastructure project by project.

  • TypeScript
  • Node.js
  • REST
  • AWS

Interactive travel utility

License Plate Tracker

03

A responsive road-trip companion for recording license-plate sightings by state and date across an interactive U.S. map.

What made it interestingTurned a classic travel game into a persistent visual record with reusable tracker IDs, sighting history, and state-level counts.

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Firebase
  • React Simple Maps
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Vite

Real-time product

D&D Session Tools

04

An authenticated tabletop companion with dramatic dice outcomes and a shared initiative tracker backed by Firestore.

What made it interestingBuilt for a real weekly ritual, with persistence and interaction shaped around the table.

  • React
  • Firebase
  • Auth
  • Realtime data

Published Chrome extension

Owen Wilson Buttons

05

A Manifest V3 browser extension that adds an Owen Wilson “wow” and a burst of confetti to button clicks across the web.

What made it interestingTurned a playful idea into a working extension published through the Chrome Web Store.

  • JavaScript
  • Chrome Extensions
  • Web Audio
  • Canvas

Home infrastructure

Plex Dashboard

06

A Dockerized control surface for monitoring the services running across a self-hosted home media environment.

What made it interestingTurned scattered operational status into a single purpose-built interface.

  • JavaScript
  • Docker
  • APIs
  • Self-hosting

Native macOS utility

Caffeinate

07

A native macOS menu bar app for timed, custom, or indefinite keep-awake sessions, with a live countdown, pause and resume, and separate display and system sleep controls.

What made it interestingBuilt a focused utility using native power-management APIs, with remembered preferences and universal builds for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

  • Swift
  • AppKit
  • IOKit
  • GitHub Actions

How I work

What it’s like to work with me.

01

Start with the person using it

I want to know who is using the thing, what they are trying to do, and where it hurts. That context usually settles the important technical decisions.

02

Build for the next change

I care about clear boundaries, useful tests, and performance we can measure—but mostly I want the next engineer to understand what I left behind.

03

Share the context

I write things down, ask direct questions, review with care, and mentor without gatekeeping. Good work moves faster when nobody has to guess.

Recognition and community

A few things I’m proud of.

A hackathon win, a second-place engineering competition finish, and time spent teaching kids how to stay safer online.

Best Buy Hackathon · 2023

1st Place — Best Collaborative Tool

Built a mentor-matching tool that connected early-career engineers with experienced people who could help in the areas they wanted to learn.

Algorithm competition · 2023

2nd Place — Engineering Cup 4.0

Finished second in Best Buy’s annual engineering competition by solving algorithm problems against the clock.

2022 — present

Instructor — Geek Squad Academy

Taught more than 100 students about online safety, privacy, password security, and digital citizenship.

The résumé

The details, on paper.

5+ years building enterprise web and mobile products. I also earned both of my degrees with a 4.0, including an M.S. in Information Systems (Software Engineering Management) in September 2026.

Tayden FlitcroftSenior Software Engineer
5+ years product engineering

Start a conversation

Get in touch.

Have a role, a project, or a difficult engineering problem in mind? Send me a note. I read everything myself.

San Antonio, Texas