Portrait of Sarah R. Taylor

Sarah R. Taylor, PhD

Business systems and automation. I find inefficiencies, connect tools, and automate tedious tasks so people can focus on the work that only they can do.

Summary

Data-driven problem-solver working at the intersection of technology, process, and human behavior. I started in academia, doing research and teaching, and left to get my hands on real-world problems. Since then, I've served as the technical communicator for a retail technology company and currently lead marketing for a five-product B2B software company, where my work has shifted from writing content to optimizing and connecting systems for the entire team.

What I love about it: building processes and systems that make the most of people's strengths while eliminating the tedious parts that hold them back.

Career Timeline

Marketing and Operations, Orcus Technologies (dba TimeForge)

Lubbock, Texas (remote) · Aug 2020 to Present

  • Lead marketing for a five-product B2B software company serving hundreds of customers across 3,000 locations in the restaurant, retail, grocery, and healthcare industries. Manage a small team with direct reports in marketing and sales, plus contractor engagements.
  • Took over the company's CRM migration from Nutshell to Go High Level when the contracted implementer failed to deliver. Built the workflow layer myself, including automated lead follow-ups and meeting notes appended automatically to contact records.
  • Built an LLM connector that gives the team access to contact and opportunity details conversationally and without requiring them to open the CRM.
  • Built an alert system for customer and partner emails handled outside of the ticketing system: it sends notifications to the team chat when threads go without a reply for 3+ days and tags the appropriate team members.
  • Automated the sales to implementations handoff: closing a deal creates onboarding tasks in the CRM and notifies the implementations team.
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  • Wrote the company's marketing process documentation, the partner onboarding playbook, and the training presentations used to onboard partners' sales teams. Also built partner tracking inside Go High Level rather than standing up a second system.
  • Evaluate, recommend, and implement appropriate tools, such as replacing the meeting notes vendor after repeated price increases and switching from an expensive Zapier plan to a more cost-effective automation solution using n8n.
  • Give UI and copy feedback in product design meetings, write Jira tickets, and do acceptance testing on web and mobile app releases.

Technical Communicator, TRUNO Retail Technology Solutions

Lubbock, Texas · May 2017 to Aug 2020

  • Led a company-wide migration off an outdated knowledge base and onto a system the company already owned as part of its existing software stack, avoiding the cost of a separate, non-integrated product.
  • Translated complex retail technology into clear documentation for customers and internal teams.

Instructor and Undergraduate Mentor, Northwestern University

Chicago, Illinois · Aug 2008 to Aug 2015

  • Taught courses for the School of Education and Social Policy, Global and Public Health, Chicago Field Studies, the School of Professional Studies, and the Department of Anthropology.
  • Mentored students in local internships and service learning programs.
  • Completed the year-long Graduate Teaching Certificate Program (Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, 2015).

Earlier roles

2002 to 2016

Ran a surface-mount (SMT) production line in Arkansas; conducted community health research (quantitative and qualitative) and served as an academic liaison in Chicago; taught and assisted research at the University of Colorado Boulder; and coordinated a paleoecology laboratory at the University of Arkansas.

Education

PhD / MPH, Medical Anthropology, Northwestern University

2008 to 2015

NSF Graduate Research Fellow (2007 to 2010); NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant; peer-reviewed publications in public health and nutrition

MA, Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder

2005 to 2008

4.0 GPA; departmental Distinguished Graduate

BA, Anthropology, University of Arkansas

2000 to 2005

Magna cum Laude

Certifications

HubSpot Sales Hub Software Certification

HubSpot Academy · 2026

HubSpot Service Hub Software Certification

HubSpot Academy · 2026

Certified Professional Technical Communicator

Society for Technical Communication · 2017

Technologies

Automation and integration

n8n, Zapier, REST APIs, webhooks, SendGrid, EmailIt, Claude API, OpenAI API, Google APIs and services, Google Chat, Discord, Fireflies

Business systems

Go High Level, Nutshell, HubSpot, MailerLite, Jira, Blue.app (project management), Google Workspace admin, WordPress, EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), Ninety.io

Development

Python, Django, PHP, Node.js, SQL, PostgreSQL, HTML / CSS, Git, GitHub, Bitbucket, GitHub Actions

Infrastructure

Linux, Docker, cron, Cloudflare (Workers, Tunnels, Zero Trust, DNS)

Personal Projects

These projects are where I get to experiment, build, and learn new tools outside of work. Happy to share URLs and additional details upon request.

Self-hosted operations dashboard

A Dockerized Node.js dashboard that pulls a dozen services (analytics, project boards, content pipelines, uptime checks) into a single view, secured behind Cloudflare Zero Trust. Scheduled fetchers and API integrations pull in the data.

Publication website and custom WordPress plugins

A special-interest website that runs on WordPress. I do the writing and editing, and I maintain 3 custom plugins I built for community events, structured data, and automation workflows.

Community resource library

A reference and documentation site for a niche online community. It holds hundreds of entries and is updated almost daily via a companion repo that automates the discovery, qualifying, and addition of new content. Hosted on Cloudflare Pages.

Multi-user virtual world in text

A persistent multiplayer game world built in Python, with Django and PostgreSQL handling the data layer. I design the tools and systems, as well as manage the infrastructure.

Open-source accessibility utility

A small tool that speaks written text aloud so authors can hear their work the way screen reader users will -- and adjust accordingly.

Causes

Some things I care about, and which are reflected in my personal projects and work ethic: