Senior Technical Product Manager

• Sep 2023 - Present

Technical Product Manager - Public APIs and Platform

• Mar 2021 - Sep 2023

- Develops strategy for APIs to build Degreed into the platform for skill-based career development and job placement - Scaled our API from ~11,000,000 to ~34,000,000 requests per month with an average response time of 0.29 seconds and an error rate of ~0.03% - Socializes and promotes platform strategy, training customer experience (CX), technical support (TS), and sales teams in the concepts and tools of our platform strategy and APIs - Synthesizes client feedback and gateway analytics into actionable metrics and insights - Works with engineers to identify solutions, evaluate technical tradeoffs, and implement solutions that advance business goals - Oversees the strategy, deployment, and development of the Degreed developers' experience (DX), including documentation, test environments, and online community. Show less

Technical Product Manager

• Jun 2019 - Mar 2021

- Collaborates in the strategic planning and agile, iterative development of technical product features from vision to reality - Assists in developing product roadmap for technical features including API endpoints and in-app API-based connection manager - Works with engineering and design teams to develop API vision and strategy that will enable the API product line to scale and facilitate an easy developer experience (DX) - Serves as internal consultant to 5 internal customers: cross-functional teams facing difficult technical challenges in their client solution work, such as multi-step integrations via REST API or FTP - Led a team of 5 interdisciplinary members to set up a $15m 3-year contract project to analyze government client lines of business for 28 agencies in the Maryland Department of Agriculture, identify their pain points, design solutions, and configure both Salesforce and our own proprietary platform to digitize and automate the client’s CRM and ERP data and workflows Show less

Sr. Content Designer / Developer Documentation

• Sep 2017 - Jun 2019

- Used quantitative, analytical, and qualitative studies to define requirements and plan documentation-redesign and -UX roadmap - Developed information architecture, content strategy, and editorial oversight of technical documentation - Supported Bb developer and administrator communities by creating sample code and explanations for third party developers for multiple products and integration technologies - Helped moderate a community for 3000+ client Blackboard developer and administrators; funnels client issues and requirements; channels them to product management - Communicated with Blackboard client developers and administators in all phases of their work from onboarding to production to understand user needs; represents Blackboard in communities of practice and key client events - Represented Blackboard in communities of practice and work with standards organizations around learning technology - Represented Blackboard at key client events; participate in the program planning and recruiting for our annual Developer’s Conference - Integrated information from client events and conferences into communications and documentation - Collaborated with others, including working directly with clients, to assist with special projects and needs - Worked collaboratively on the new cross-functional team for platform development - Co-taught course on agile methodologies and presented on using unusual tools to implement scrum Show less

Product Owner / Developer Documentation and Outreach

• Aug 2015 - Sep 2017

- Developed product roadmap for Zoomdata Developer Zone by taking input from customer success, marketing, UX, reviews of competitor practices, and interviews with key clients - Wrote API documentation: --- How-to Guides for developers new to developing or to the Zoomdata platform --- Reference materials (including with the Swagger and JSdoc systems) for advanced developers --- Samples of API use downloadable from Github or viewable in JSFiddle - Supported product and POC development using advanced knowledge of Zoomdata's APIs - Honed project management skills by leading migration project involving 1000+ topic docs portal from a cloud provider to our web site that we designed, built, and host as an integrated part of the Zoomdata website. In doing this, we solved a number of technical problems and built a platform to address usability issues hampering our customers. - Supported bug reporting and tracking on the front line of API development - Fielded questions about Zoomdata's SDK from marketing, sales, customer support, and engineering teams - Created snazzy video demos of Zoomdata API-related tasks to support marketing efforts using state-of-the-art screen capture software - Worked with customers and prospects to make prototypes showing how the Zoomdata SDK can solve actual customer problems - Trained newly hired engineers and customer engineers on the Zoomdata SDK - Assisted as a member of Zoomdata's release team coordinating product releases to ensure the products are feature-complete, robust, and resilient Show less

Lead Technical Writer

• Apr 2015 - Aug 2015

- Developed publisher guide for Brightspot CMS - Developed operator guide for in-house cloud network management tool - Developed hand-off documentation for web development projects - Translated ~200 pp of publisher and administrator documentation into Spanish - Assisted teams in reorganizing Confluence wiki spaces - Developed publisher guide for Brightspot CMS - Developed operator guide for in-house cloud network management tool - Developed hand-off documentation for web development projects - Translated ~200 pp of publisher and administrator documentation into Spanish - Assisted teams in reorganizing Confluence wiki spaces

Contract Technical Writer

• Jan 2013 - Apr 2015

Worked closely with multiple startup companies, including: - Zoomdata (Reston, Virginia) - Opower (Arlington, Virginia) - VoloForce (Germantown, Maryland) Key Projects: - Gathered client requirements and needs to design and build Joomla-powered websites and documentation sites - Saved a client approx. $200k by editing a document from 60k words to 20k words, deleting nothing essential, in preparation for translation into 14 languages - Combined 10 related documents into a single-source project so that all 10 documents can be kept uniform, customized, easily maintained, and frequently updated with minimal impact. Repeated this process with 4 other document sets - Wrote online documentation to describe technical specifications and features in easy language - Built workflows for new client onboarding, billing, and security management Show less

SDK Technical Writer

• Dec 2010 - Jun 2013

Reviewed source material, interviewed software engineers and testers, and collaborated with other writers to understand complex software products and to produce documentation addressing the needs of any audience Used defect tracking system (TQMS) to monitor software updates, log defect/enhancement reports, and keep documentation up to date Primary author of: ∙ Best practices white papers for technical consultants ∙ Online helps for software applications ∙ SDK help topic ∙ Customer administration manual for platform-as-a-service offerings ∙ Videos for conference presentations to highlight new features Revised, expanded, and updated: ∙ Online helps ∙ Printed manuals ∙ Wiki-type helps Implemented single-source techniques and CSS-based styling to manage uniformity of feel and content Show less

Technical Writer / Graphic Designer

• Feb 2007 - Dec 2008

Interviewed engineers, software developers, testers, trainers, user support, and project managers to fact-check, write, copyedit, and proofread end-user documentation for complex soft ware applications including: ∙ 12 user guides and training manuals (approx. 600 pages of text) using Adobe Suite ∙ 6 PowerPoint presentations to accompany training manuals ∙ 2 quick start guides ∙ 2 installation guides, and a reference manual ∙ Marketing / promotional materials ∙ Revised approx. 600 pages of text to bring to appropriate company formatting/documentation standards ∙ Used Adobe FrameMaker, PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign, and RoboHelp ∙ Collaborated in large team projects, tracked revisions, punctually met all deadlines, and received consistently excellent reviews ∙ Created document templates/style sheets using MS Word and Adobe FrameMaker ∙ Revised documentation of acquired software to bring it into conformity with company standards ∙ Developed familiarity with software development life cycle (SDLC) and content management systems (CMS) ∙ Conducted regression testing on new software (approx. 640 hours) as well as error and usability issues reporting Show less