Charlotte Brandhorst-Satzkorn

charlotte@catzkorn.dev • github.com/catzkorn • catzkorn.dev • Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Canada

Personal Profile

I am a meticulous user-experience driven engineer focusing on producing high quality readable code, drawing on my non-technical background to improve understanding of user pain points. I identify issues across the business and lead initiatives to improve both customer outcomes and employee satisfaction.

Experience

Tailscale (March 2021 - present)#

Senior Software Engineer#

Go, Typescript, React, SQLite, Postgres, REST, OpenTelemetry, among others

Joined as an early engineer, working across the product from the Tailscale client through to the control servers backend and frontend development.

  • Designed and delivered the Custom OIDC feature, a generic OIDC authentication integration from prototype to General Availability, ahead of time, allowing the onboarding of large new customers.

  • Delivered flagship features such as Tailscale’s Mullvad VPN integration, HTTPS certificate automation, MagicDNS General Availability, and App Connectors, significantly increasing the ARR of the business.

  • Performed multiple major database schema migrations across disparate database technologies, minimizing downtime and ensuring data consistency through extensive preparation and testing.

  • Introduced and led the integration of OpenTelemetry and HoneyComb to improve observability of internal services, significantly expediting the identification and diagnosis of service and user issues.

  • Championed engineering and business policy initiatives from proposal to completion, most notably the user focused SSO tax removal from the pricing model.

  • Took ownership of the Tailscale Reddit community, developing it into a flourishing community, building customer relationships with new market segments.

  • Mentored multiple university interns leading to offers of employment.

  • Worked closely with the support team to engage directly with customers to gain feedback, better the product, and improve user outcomes.

  • Contributed blog posts and documentation to the tailscale.com website and knowledge base.

  • Integrated third-party integrations, such as Stripe, Postmark, Mullvad, among others.

  • Worked across teams to improve internal tooling such as testing, logs- and support infrastructure.

Open Source Contributions#

net/http - Content-Length parsing for js/wasm#

  • Corrected parsing of Content-Length header in the net/http library for the js/wasm HTTP client.

pkg.go.dev - Link to latest module version#

  • Contributed code allowing users to see a link to the latest version of a module.

Education

Makers Academy Bootcamp (2020)#

  • Built applications in variety of languages, including Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, SQL (PostgreSQL, ActiveRecord) and Go.
  • Deployed to, and interacted with, cloud platforms including AWS, GCP and Heroku.

University of Southampton (2014 - 2019)#

PhD Candidate, NERC CDT in Oil and Gas#

Base and Heavy Metal Mobilisation during Hydraulic Fracturing of Black Shales

  • Exploring fluid-rock interactions and metal mobilisation to inform regulation and best practices for shale exploration onshore in the United Kingdom.
  • Solely responsible for project management and direction, designing and executing experimental procedures simulating hydraulic fracturing conditions in a laboratory setting.
  • Presented research at internal and international conferences.
  • Withdrew from the program prematurely in 2019 due to illness.

University of Portsmouth (2011-2014)#

Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Environmental Science#

Acid Mine Drainage and Toxic Metal Contamination from Abandoned Mine Tailings in Adak, Northern Sweden

  • Researched scientific literature to find follow-up research opportunities.
  • Evolved prior research methodologies to account for improvements in analytical technologies.
  • Awarded Best Presentation 2014 for research findings and presentation.

Interests

My personal interests include outdoor sports such as trail running, mountaineering, skiing and mountain biking. I am currently training to run a trail ultra marathon. I enjoy reading fiction and non-fiction books, watching movies, playing board games, listening to music of all genres, and I have been a lifelong fan of motorsport. I continue to have a personal interest in global environmental issues and actively keep up-to-date on the latest science.