Frontend / Product Engineer ·
Huntington Beach, CA
Hi, I'm Taylor. For five years I've built React and TypeScript frontends, most recently at Startpage, a privacy-focused search engine. Before code, I spent years as a project manager, so I care about shipping on time as much as pixels.
the good stuff
Launches I led at Startpage, from first prototype to production. Illustrations are redrawn, not product screenshots.
01 · Startpage · 2026
I led the frontend for Startpage's first account system and paid product: inline signup, embedded checkout, a free year for students, and account settings in 11 languages. Thousands of people signed up in the first month.
02 · Startpage · 2026
With PM and design, I re-architected the Sports widget into a reusable component system (live games, standings, players) and shipped the World Cup 2026 experience to all traffic before kickoff. It rendered millions of times this year.
03 · Startpage · 2026
Search results waited a fixed 3 seconds to decide whether Google had ads. I swapped the timer for Google's own callbacks, so the answer arrives in about half a second and backup ads show sooner. Ad load time dropped 20 to 24% at p75 on desktop.
04 · Startpage · 2026
I owned the frontend for a Skyscanner-powered flight booking widget and a flight status widget: airport autosuggest, date and passenger pickers, live price polling and localization. I got a working demo in front of UX and QA before final mocks, which sped the whole project up.
and lots more
Smaller launches, experiments and the work that keeps a big product running.
Built with the MapQuest team, including fixes to their own embed library.
MapsA widget surfacing community answers from Reddit, from first design to launch.
AI16 “/” shortcuts plus direct links to top sites, with buy-in across five teams.
Search UXDaily chat limits that open the paywall, plus React Native features for mobile.
React NativeBuilt and launched ad-layout experiments with PM, analytics and monetization.
ExperimentsHundreds of production releases and regular on-call for a live search engine.
Reliabilityhow I got here
2022 – Now
Software Engineer III · promoted Apr 2025
Frontend owner for Startpage. I lead launches with product, design, QA and backend, mentor new frontend engineers, and won the 2024 company hackathon with an AI image detector.
2021 – 2022
Full Stack Developer
Improved a React and GraphQL CRM and a Ruby on Rails app on AWS, built automated reporting pipelines, and ran the team’s sprint planning.
2020 – 2021
Project Manager
Ran timelines and testing for large infrastructure projects, and wrote an R script that automated cable calculations across tens of thousands of components.
2013 – 2017
Engineering Project Manager
Managed scope, schedule, budget and risk for up to five large IT and engineering projects at once, reporting to technical and executive stakeholders.
Education
B.S. Mathematics, minor in English
Plus a software engineering certificate from General Assembly in 2021, where I made the jump from managing projects to building them.
off the clock
Running marathons, hiking the next peak, or building an app that’s just past what I know how to do. I’m happiest heads-down on a hard problem with a small, close-knit team, and I bring the same energy to a pixel-perfect modal as I do to mile 22.
Lately I’ve been building a tool that turns Garmin run data into video overlays, because of course I have.
your move
Have a frontend or product engineering role in mind? Tell me what your team is building.
taylorhughes291@gmail.com