Sarah Sexton

LinkedIn | Washington | email@SarahSays.dev | linktr.ee

Full Stack Engineer

Software Engineer of 11+ years at Microsoft. Strong technical and communication skills, professional public speaker. Attention to detail and impact-driven. Worked across multiple domains: AI technologies, Spatial Computing, Developer Experience in video games, Commercial Software Engineering, empowering Retail industries with Azure Cloud. Sarah’s unique blend of a B.S. in C.S. and Communications makes her one of the few "Geeks who Speak."

Areas of Expertise

Artificial Intelligence
Cloud Accelerator
Engineering Fundamentals
Software Development
Documentation
Technical Training
Webinars
Accessibility
Community Building
Public Speaking
Audience Engagement

Skills

C#
.NET core
ASP.NET
Python
PyTorch
PromptFlow
TensorFlow
GitHub Actions
Open Source
React
MaterialUI
Bootstrap
HTML
CSS
JavaScript
Responsive Web Design
ARIA best practices
UI/UX

Test-Driven Development (TDD)
Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
Code coverage
Kubernetes
Agile methodologies, Scrum
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Software Development Lifecycles
DevOps

Prompt Engineering
Large Language Models (LLM)
Data Science / Machine Learning (DSML)
Generative AI
AI Foundry
ML Studio
Retrieve Augment Generate (RAG)
Custom ML Models
Deployment Patterns

Experience

Senior Software Engineer

- Turing Enterprises, Palo Alto, CA September 2025 – Present

LLM Evaluation & Repository Validation: Identify high-quality public GitHub repositories with issues challenging for LLMs.
Analyze and triage GitHub issues across trending open-source libraries.
Set up and configure code repositories, including Dockerization and environment setup.
Evaluate unit test coverage and quality.
Modify and run codebases locally to assess LLM performance in bug-fixing scenarios.

Software Engineer II

- Microsoft, Redmond, WA July 2018 – July 2025

Spearheaded bleeding-edge technologies as they emerged: GenAI, ChatGPT, LLMs, RNNs, and more.
Overcame interoperability obstacles between Python & C# by exposing C# functions as DLLs, Dynamic Link Libraries, then invoking from Python via the pythonnet Python library.
34% satisfaction increase & value-add in customers overall by accelerating cloud workloads.
5+ years’ experience training data pipelines, fine-tuning models, and working across MLOps systems.
Utilized AI Foundry and Azure ML Studio to produce scores necessary to make data-driven decisions, such as relevancy, adherence, and groundedness.
Deployed LLMs at scale; architected ML models end-to-end.
Led 22 technical engagements hands-on with top 500 Microsoft Azure commercial & retail customers.
Streamlined code testing processes by automating pull request gate build pipelines to report code coverage.

Technical Evangelist

- Microsoft, Chicago, IL July 2014 – July 2018

Organized Game Jams and Hackathons for over 100 diverse meetup members.
Co-founded a non-profit organization called The Voxel Collective for Gender Diversity in Game Development; organized Game Jams and Hackathons for over 100 diverse meetup members.
Ran over 70 Azure and gaming evangelism events across Microsoft Developer Experience (DX) field.
Created and delivered over 20 presentations at conferences from 2014 – 2020, with live technical demos for audiences of hundreds.
Advocated for over 24 professional developers & studios around the world by collecting product feedback and escalating technical blockers with engineering.
Interviewed 12 diverse game developers, sharing thought-provoking stories to inspire the next generation.

Education

BS - Bachelor of Science – Computer Science | Communications Minor, summa cum laude
Central Washington University - Ellensburg, WA

Certifications & Awards

Microsoft Certified: Accessibility (2025), Privacy (2024), Security (2023), Azure Fundamentals (2019)
Microsoft Specialist: Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions (2015)
Microsoft Circle of Excellence - FY16 Top Subsidiary Award (2015)
Microsoft Diversity and Inclusion Award - 2015 MS Developer Experience (2015)

Portfolio: SarahSays.dev | Open-Source: github/SarahSexton | Thought Leadership: SheBuildsGames.dev | Tech Blog: aka.ms/sarahsays

Additional Experience

Conference Associate

- UBM · Contract Jan 2019 – Mar 2019 · 3 mos- San Francisco, California, United States

Punctual performance as a Conference Associate (CA) at the Game Developers Conference.
Partook in morning organization meetings before the conference from Sunday through Friday.
Dedicated availability during all conference hours starting from Sunday through Friday.
Reliably on-time and in-place for work shifts throughout the week, and also on-site and enjoying the show while not on-duty.
Maintained the level of excellence associated with the CAs.

Community Support Specialist

- Kittitas Interactive Management Oct 2013 – Jun 2014 · 9 mos- Ellensburg, WA

Provide supervision and assistance for developmentally disabled adults in their own homes.

Publications Designer/Art Director

- Central Washington University 2013 – 2014 · 9 mos- Ellensburg, WA

Designed article layouts and created page art for the student-run organization, CWU Pulse Magazine.
Mastery of Google Slides, Apple Keynote, and Microsoft PowerPoint, along with proficiency in Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop.

Game Designer

- Disrupted Gears Productions Apr 2013 – Sep 2013 · 6 mos- Ellensburg, WA

Developed new content and applied practical coding experience in the development of a LUA-based mobile game.
Organized, ran, and recorded the results of game playtesting. Created images and designed the user interface for the game.

Teaching Assistant

- Central Washington University 2012 – Mar 2012 · 3 mos- Ellensburg, WA

Assisted several professors in the math and computer science departments with grading assignments and answering student questions.

Researcher

- CWU Wellness Oct 2011 – Feb 2012 · 5 mos- Ellensburg, WA

Part-time photographer employed to research the student body’s opinion on the social consumption of alcohol. Lead to an official SOURCE presentation.

Rides Ambassador

- Worlds of Fun Jul 2011 – Sep 2011 · 3 mos- Kansas City, Missouri Area

Ensure the safety of the passengers, enforce the rules of the ride.

Cashier

- McDonald's Corporation May 2005 – Jun 2011 · 6 yrs 2 mos

Take orders to customer specifications, behind the counter and drive-thru window, always with a smile.
Periodically clean counters, wash dishes, sweep and mop floors, empty trashcans.
Manage flyers; cook, salt & mix French fries, then pack in cartons for customers.
Present bagged & packaged food for drive-thru customers with pleasant demeanor.
Provide customer service to average of 75 customers per shift.

Intern

- The Issaquah Press Jul 2010 – Sep 2010 · 3 mos- Issaquah, WA

Interned as a copy editor and reporter. Wrote articles and interviewed civilians for the newspaper.

Copy Editor

- Eastlake High School Newspaper 2009 – 2010 · 1 yr

Maintains a firm grasp on the grammatical rules of the English language.
Extremely thorough reader, proof-reader and writer.
Quick learner, eager to learn and unafraid of asking questions.
Responsible, reliable, and punctual.
Works well in groups and is self-motivated when working alone.