What’s Unique: I am fearless, hands-on, and an enthusiastic learner of new technologies. I have been a tech writer for over years for companies ranging from Google to Splunk to Unity, moving with Unity to Pennsylvania in 2021. This resume is mostly about my writing. But, this matters too: prior to that, in a galaxy far away and a system unknown to many (IBM Domino), I created database applications and designed global server infrastructures and replication schemes. I consulted for Hewlett-Packard, Seagate, Transamerica Pyramid, Charles Schwab, Gap Corporate, working in IT, selecting tools, troubleshooting, and designing ACL authentication schemes. I created apps to meet customer requirements, working full product lifecycles from product inception to product sunset. Managing and implementing upgrades and migrations, I worked with early cloud-type architecture. Operating Systems included UNIX, Linux, Windows, MacOS, and OS/2. I learned remote server access tools and Docker, using them recently at Hitachi (pgAdmin, Prometheus, CLI, vSphere).
Audience: technology newbies, seasoned developers, game designers, dev ops engineers, and systems designers. I partner with UX, PMs, Dev, Marcom and others, to discover synergies and insights that improve both doc & product, advocating to include doc in appropriate Agile scrums.
Mentoring: I mentor junior writers to create a content strategy that reaches users where they are, encompassing user doc, tutorials, effective forum design, customer stories, tool tips, API Doc, troubleshooting, video, presentations and Git repos.
Courses & Conferences I've Attended / Am Attending
· Erie County Community College - Mobile Apps Development Track (2024 - Present)
Button, Online, 2021 (UX)
· UX Text, Online (Unity custom-led, 2021)
· Interviewing Candidates (Unity, custom), San Francisco, 2021
· Write the Docs, Portland, 2018
· Unity Learn courses (2018 – 2022)
· Splunk. conf2014, Technical Kick Off, Splunk for End Users, Splunk Knowledge Objects
· Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Cloud, Splunk App for Enterprise Security, Stream, MINT
· Big Data Conference 2013
· npm nodeschool 2017, 2018
· SalesForce DreamForce Conference
· Coursera Human Computer Interaction (certificate 2013)
· Innovation for Humans, Luma (certificate, week-long onsite workshop) 2013
· Playwriting Class– (SFSU)
· Fiction Class – (Stanford, taught by Alice La Plante)
· Actor (Appeared in Community Theatre in Benicia, CA)
My Style & Approach
I've been privileged to successfully lead and create in diverse teams, benefiting from a range of thinking styles, ages, technical approaches, and life experiences.
I have a gentle but effective approach when leading and introducing new ideas, a humble and inquisitive approach when learning. When I see someone else's amazing work, I let everyone know.
I've collaborated with colleagues from England to India, from Finland to Italy, on zoom and in-person. I've worked around the clock as needed.
I've recently added Artificial Intelligence to my toolkit; at Hitachi, I used it to clarify and redesign tables and to create graphics. As a UX Writer who has designed prompts and menus, and a tech writer who has created step-by-step guides, I think of AI as simply another level of predicting user goals and leading them to success.
As a writer, I imagine the user journey, working with devs to get hands-on experience with the product, consulting with UX, product experts, dev, and sales to understand users and their world. My goal? Create content that anticipates challenges, imagines possibilities, and guides users to success.
