Software Engineer — Los Angeles

Michelle
Navarro

Building software.
Mapping earth data.

LAT 34.0522° N
LON -118.2437° W
ELEV 71 m
STATUS Open to work
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01 — About

Software Engineer.
(and cartographer-in-training)

Full-stack engineer with 6+ years building production systems at scale. I work with Java and Spring Boot on the backend and React and Node on the frontend.

I’m especially excited by roles in climate, health, and social impact, but open to interesting problems anywhere.

B.A. Computer Science Barnard College, Columbia University — 2017 GIS Certificate in progress Pasadena City College
Resume ↗ GitHub
02 — Software

Professional Work

Here's some of what I built over six years as a software engineer.

Watsi
2016
Node.js · Ruby on Rails · React

Watsi Engineering Internship

Contributed features to Watsi’s global patient funding platform, connecting donors with patients receiving life-changing medical care.

Taboola
Frontend
Intern · 2017
OAuth 2.0 · Node.js · Chrome Extension

Auth Refactor — OAuth Refresh Tokens

Refactored authentication for Newsroom’s Chrome extension to implement OAuth refresh token session management, eliminating daily logouts and increasing retention by 30%.

Taboola
Full Stack Engineer
2018–21
Node.js · Kubernetes · ML

Automated Content Review Crawler

Designed and productized a Node.js web crawler on Kubernetes for content review, reducing ad approval time by 35%+ and enhancing downstream ML models.

Java · Spring · REST APIs · React

Publisher Client Onboarding Dashboard

Built REST API endpoints and an internal dashboard for publisher onboarding, replacing a legacy flow and significantly reducing setup errors.

React · Redux · Java · JUnit · Jest

Taboola Ads Campaign Platform

Developed and maintained client-facing and server-side features for the Taboola Ads campaign platform with full automated test coverage.

Grafana · PagerDuty · Observability

Production Monitoring & Alerting

Implemented production monitoring and alerting for critical endpoints using Grafana and PagerDuty, improving incident response and system reliability.

React Native · React Redux

Newsroom Mobile & Web Apps

Contributed features to the Taboola Newsroom analytics web app for publishers and built corresponding mobile experiences using React Native.

Taboola
Senior SWE
2021–23
Java · Spring Boot · React · LLM

Generative AI Prompt Helper

Built the Java Spring REST API and React frontend for Taboola’s generative AI prompt helper, driving up to 50% higher advertiser conversions.

Airflow · MySQL · Vertica · Tableau

Analytics & Behavior Tracking Pipelines

Added analytics flows from frontend to MySQL and Vertica tables, powering Tableau dashboards to surface real-time behavioral data.

Airflow · Java · REST APIs

End-to-End Notification Flow

Implemented a full notification system using Airflow, improving adoption of campaign features.

Java · A/B Testing · Refactor

A/B Testing Infrastructure Refactor

Reduced A/B testing configuration complexity by refactoring legacy infrastructure, leading to fewer system and user errors platform-wide.

Skills

Backend & Infra

  • Java · Spring Boot
  • Node.js
  • Kubernetes
  • Maven

Frontend

  • React · Redux
  • React Native
  • JavaScript
  • HTML · CSS

Data Systems

  • Airflow
  • MySQL
  • Vertica

Monitoring & Insights

  • Grafana
  • PagerDuty
  • Tableau
  • Google Analytics

AI-Assisted Development

  • Claude Code
  • Spec-driven development
  • Context engineering
03 — Spatial Work

Earth, Spatial Data, and Maps

I spend a lot of time outside and got curious about what I was looking at. That led me to GIS and working with spatial data. It opens the door to problems involving the physical world. Climate, water, public health, infrastructure. These maps are from my certificate at Pasadena City College, click any to expand.

Southern California Giant Kelp Forests Under Heat Stress, March 2026
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01

Kelp Forests Under Heat Stress

Mapped kelp occurrences against NOAA sea surface temps to find stress zones off the Southern California coast. The red boundary marks where the next generation of kelp is at risk.

NOAA · GBIF · Natural Earth

Fault Lines and Population Density, Los Angeles County 2020
click to expand
02

Fault Lines & Population Density

USGS quaternary fault data over 2020 census density. Historic faults run right through the densest corridors in LA County.

US Census Bureau · USGS

Global Change in Water Storage, 2000–2022
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03

Global Change in Water Storage

NASA GRACE satellite data tracking how water stored in soil, snow, ice, lakes, and groundwater has shifted globally from 2000 to 2022. Drought, glacier melt, and groundwater depletion are bleeding regions dry — amplified by climate change.

NASA

04 — Contact

Say hello.

Especially interested in mission-driven work, but always open to a good conversation.

michelle.navarro.la@gmail.com →