// hi, i'm

Stephanie Elder

I wake up every day wanting to make things a little better: the network, the workplace, the world.

Hey, I'm Steph. I fix things, build things, and occasionally over-engineer my home network. Here's the stuff I'd tell you over coffee.

01 // now

Right now

What I'm into this season.

  • Vibe coding a network rack planner
  • Studying for Security+, mostly to prove to myself I actually know this stuff
  • Trying to get outside and enjoy as much of the Midwest autumn as I can
last updated · october 2026
02 // work

The day job

What I do when someone's paying me to.

I work for a managed service provider (MSP). I like untangling networks and making small and medium-sized businesses more secure. Here's what I do on my quest to leave things better than I found them.

A-01

Identity

Users, groups, and conditional access in Microsoft Entra ID. For clients still running on-prem, I manage file servers with Active Directory and Group Policy, then tie it all together with Entra Connect.

A-02

M365 & SharePoint

I've moved hundreds of mailboxes and users from on-prem servers into Microsoft 365: email, files, and Teams. In SharePoint, I build lists and Power Automate flows that give teams control of their own processes.

A-03

Networking

My favorite job: tearing out an old, flaky network and rebuilding it right. Day to day that means UniFi, Meraki, and Fortinet, with VLANs to keep traffic separated.

A-04

Security hardening

Defense in layers: I've brought every one of our clients onto MFA and set up patching schedules in N-able RMM. Each layer is agreed with the client up front, and nothing changes without their sign-off.

A-05

Backup & disaster recovery

I build backup policies with each client, then walk them through what a full disaster recovery test looks like: RTOs, RPOs, and how to harden the setup.

A-06

AI

Claude and ChatGPT are part of my everyday toolkit, from troubleshooting to building my own tools and web apps that automate repetitive tasks.

03 // making

Things I've made

Some finished, some forever-in-progress.

P-01

Rack planner

A vibe-coded tool for pre-planning network rack deployments, with a 3D view that predicts cable counts and lengths.

side project
P-02

Home lab

A demo environment where I keep stretching my networking muscles and test configs before they go anywhere near a client. Right now it's a UDM Pro SE running six VLANs that separate my infrastructure, IoT devices, and even a few retro gaming consoles.

side project
P-03

stephanie-elder.com

This site, designed and built with Claude Code. Plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, no frameworks, and a pixel bunny hiding somewhere.

you're here
04 // path

How I got here

The short version, minus the bullet points.

05 // off the clock

Off the clock

Things that have nothing to do with a job title.