Fundamentally, I view most problems as applied information architecture challenges. Obsessed with understanding how people and systems interact, and identifying points of friction and failure in between.
Developer advocate, technical writer, programmer, solutions engineer, and product generalist.
Experience in PaaS, developer tooling, Infrastructure-as-Code, and cloud-native infrastructure.
I specialize in untangling difficult problems and communicating complicated ideas, drawing on a background in cognitive psychology and linguistics.
Docs-as-code, Git, CI/CD, LLM-based Systems, Graphic Design, Video Editing
Work Experience
CTO.ai
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Solutions Engineer
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Analysis and remediation of security vulnerabilities in cloud app infrastructure.
Analysis and implementation of relational database query optimization to eliminate performance bottlenecks.
Design and implementation of Kubernetes infrastructure to enhance system reliability while minimizing spend on unneeded compute capacity.
Supporting clients’ implementations of cloud-native development workflows using CI/CD and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools.
Collaborating with cross-functional teams to scope and implement cloud-native solutions on AWS and DigitalOcean infrastructure.
Implementing application-level solutions to optimize infrastructure usage.
Contributing to a large refactoring project to upgrade a legacy Rails 3.2 application to Rails 4.2 and lay the groundwork for future upgrades.
Writing and managing technical documentation for internal and external stakeholders.
Developer Relations Lead
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Single-person, full-service, catch-all DevRel department spanning technical writing, content marketing, software development, product management, information architecture, graphic design, and video editing.
Overhauled the production documentation from the ground up: Rewrote existing content to reflect the current state of the product, expanded conceptual and explanatory content to illustrate the value proposition, and consolidated reference docs for cohesion.
Migrated the documentation from a third-party documentation platform provider to a version-controlled, self-managed Hugo and GitHub Pages site. Customized and extended the theme (Hugo templates and Tailwind CSS), including implementation of a snippet system from reusable, atomic content blocks.
Worked with the engineering team to revamp the information architecture of the product’s data dashboards so users could more easily derive actionable insights from their data.
Wrote the prompts for the product’s LLM-based code review features.
Collaborated with sales executives to develop concept, outline, and slide deck for product demos and presentations. Produced blogs, feature announcements, and a sponsored post in an external publication.
Recorded and assembled product demo videos. Represented the company at Collision 2023.
Worked with companies to improve public-facing developer resources including documentation, blog posts, and technical content. Development work focused primarily on Python-based projects and DevOps, often in collaboration with academics and researchers.
Select projects:
New documentation and marketing content for compliance-oriented PaaS
Explainer docs for a usage-based billing system vendor and an industrial robotic automation platform
New docs site and tooling for parallel C/C++/Python libraries for IoT hardware security module vendor
Wrote comprehensive "Developer's Guide to SBOMs" guide for software supply chain integrity vendor
Platform.sh
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Developer Relations Engineer
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Technical Writer & Python Cloud Engineer
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Built an open-source Python library for parsing and editing OpenAPI Specification schemas. Designed and built a CLI tool for adding documentation to bare machine-generated OAS schemas and merging the API schemas for multiple backend services behind a single API gateway. Wrote and managed the API documentation.
Planned and implemented the DevRel team’s demo presentation tech stack, including a custom iPad app built with React Native. Managed the lifecycle of the iPad-based system as it grew from a three-device proof of concept to a dozen devices used across DevRel, Sales, and Customer Solutions.
Worked with prospects to adapt open-source projects to run on Platform.sh, producing proof-of-concept projects to demonstrate how prospects could use the PaaS to provide a SaaS offering.
Collaborated across Developer Relations, Engineering, and Product teams to write and review documentation, blog posts, feature announcements, and tutorials.
Represented the product at sponsored booths at various tech conferences.
Other duties included managing the team’s Jira projects, interviewing candidates, and implementing minor product features.
Sourceress
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Technical Writer
Wrote highly-personalized outreach emails to SWE candidates on behalf of clients
Edited other writers’ emails to ensure consistent output quality
Developed reusable pitches and blurbs to streamline team-wide writing processes
Assisted other writers with improving their comprehension of technical and engineering concepts
Western University
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Graduate Researcher
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Graduate Teaching Assistant
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Developed algorithm in Python for quantifying visual similarity of Chinese characters (and presented work at PyCon Canada 2016)
Designed and implemented process for automated extraction of the most “typical” sentences from a large online corpus for use as stimuli in reading experiment
Developed set of Python packages to insert gzipped Google Ngrams Simplified Chinese database dumps (several TB uncompressed) into Elasticsearch without needing to store or decompress files locally, resulting in a final size of about 150GB
Developed self-paced reading experiment from scratch using PsychoPy
Programmed experiments and statistical analyses for student research projects
Led a tutorial section comprising reviews of course content, discussion questions, and reviews of recent assignments
Center for Language Science, Penn State University
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Research Assistant
As an NSF PIRE 2014 Undergraduate Fellow, designed and implemented a behavioral paradigm to investigate the effects a language learner’s native orthography can have on how the learner encodes novel phonological information; tested subjects at Beijing Normal University in summer 2014 and at Penn State in fall 2014.
Penn State Dance Marathon
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Technology Captain
Collaborated with six other volunteer developers as part of the Technology Committee to implement a complete system overhaul of the internal information system used by tens of thousands of volunteers each year, implemented key features such as the medication and medical information tracking system in use during the 46-hour no-sitting, no-sleeping dance marathon weekend
Education
Penn State University
2011 to 2015
Linguistics, B.Phil.
Psychology, B.A.
Western University
2015 to 2017
Cognitive Psychology
Graduate coursework and research experience
Other Roles
Language Acquisition Lab, Penn State University— Contract Eyelink Programmer
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Penn State Intensive English Communication Program (IECP)— Volunteer ESL Tutor
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Penn State University— Undergraduate Teaching Assistant
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Center for Academic Achievement, Penn State Beaver— Tutor
