Resume

Summary

Developer advocate, blogger, and technical writer with fifteen years of experience in the software industry meeting the technical and business needs of developers.

Achievements

  •  Saved eBay $17.1 million by working with top-tier and long-tail developers to adopt new Item Condition values by the holiday deadline.  Feature required a mandatory code change for all listing tools.
  • Triaged ~150 new eBay projects per year for developer impact. Made high-level recommendations to Product Managers on API implementation given understanding of API architecture and 3rd-party developer business needs. Communicated changes to developers, and cycled feedback to Product Managers.

Experience

Developer Advocate, API Team

eBay, Inc.

2007–2011
  • Managed developer community of 168,000 developers responsible for one-third of all eBay listings and making 4 billion API calls a month.
  • Facilitated semi-annual internal Innovation competition with over 100 competitors, 1000 attendees and senior executive and Board of Director visibility. Winning apps became stand-alone products or were folded into the eBay.com site.
  • Influenced eBay product roadmap given developer needs. Communicated results through internal, NDA, and public channels. Tracked compliance and folded results back into product roadmap.
  • Worked with 3rd-party developers to implement new eBay features and changes with minimum impact to their or their customers’ businesses.
  • Met biweekly with top-tier 3rd-party developers (responsible for 25% of eBay listings) to preview upcoming changes under NDA. Connected developers directly with Product Managers for information and feedback. Developers voted it the top benefit of being involved in the program.
  • Trained and lead 7-person Social Media & Blogging team for annual eBay Developers Conference (2007-2010). Team produced 25 blog posts over 2.5 days, 10 videos, 700 photos, and over 80 tweets per hour.
  • As acting webmaster, performed tasks like redesigning the developer.ebay.com Join page to add AJAX validation and improve usability. Conversion rate increased by 36%.

Technical Writer, API Docs

eBay, Inc.

2004–2007
  • Updated and published up to 8,000 pages of API documentation covering four platforms (SOAP, XML, Java, and .NET) every two weeks.
  • Reviewed, tested, and documented bi-weekly schema changes to the eBay Web Services platform. Specialized in My eBay, My Messages, Notifications, and eBay Giving Works. Documentation included code samples and changes to schema source code.
  • Improved AutoMap and WebWorks build process to support afternoon and nightly builds of 15 different single-sourced doc sets.

Documentation Consultant

Laurel Consulting

2002–2004
  • Created internal process docs for Silicon Valley companies like BEA, IdeaBlast, and Lutris.
  • Wrote, edited, and indexed a 60-page Getting Started Guide for the EmEditor text editor.

Publications Engineer II

Lutris Technologies

2000–2002
  • Scheduled and performed full production on three major product releases (print/PDF/Dynamic HTML/product CD) and six alpha/beta releases a year.
  • Designed and created Documentation area of corporate intranet. Had major input into R&D and Training areas. Taught class on working with intranet templates and best practices for publishing to the intranet.
  • Provided materials, support, and testing for third-party Japanese translation agency resulting in under budget, early delivery of translated documentation.

Publications Engineer

Borland International

1997–2000
  • Performed final production on Borland software manuals (approximately 1000-page, five-book documentation sets) including scheduling, copyediting, proofing, logical page breaks, graphic manipulation (where needed), template integrity checks, conversion to multiple formats (PostScript/PDF/Dynamic HTML), and final archiving.
  • Set up and maintained Documentation Testing Lab of eight machines running various operating systems, browsers, resolutions, and applications.
  • Designed and created paper and online documentation usability surveys to assess user needs.

Tools

Social Media Twitter, Facebook, Developer Forums, Developer Blog, TwitterFeed, CoTweet, SocialPing, TweetDeck, Bit.ly
Interviews eBay Star Developer Awards (2007–2010), eBay Radio, RRB Radio (eBay News), GeekSpeak (KUSP)
Conferences (staff) eBay Developers Conference (2005–2010), PayPal X Innovate (2009–2010), Web 2.0, Cloudstock (Force.com), iOS DevCamp
Publishing (print, CD, web): FrameMaker, Acrobat, Dynamic HTML (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), WebWorks Professional, AutoMap, Vignette, Plone, WebKing, WebDAV, Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project), Help Workshop, RoboHelp, HomeSite, Dreamweaver, HTML PowerTools, TextPad
Graphics: Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, Visio, Fireworks, Snag-it
Operating Systems: Windows NT 4–Windows 7, UNIX, Linux, Mac OS
Programming: Java, XML, AJAX, SOAP, Perl, DOS scripting, WebWorks macro language, Regular expressions, JBuilder, XMLSpy, ClearCase, Perforce, CVS, Cygwin, AutoIt

Education

University of California, Santa Cruz Extension, Cupertino

  • Participated in 12 hours of training in Print Production on topics ranging from pre-press to proofing bluelines.
  • Finished 11 hours of training in Photoshop on an Apple computer.
  • Granted a certificate in Technical Writing & Communication after 226 hours of training.

Cabrillo Community College, Aptos

Introduction to Java

  • Completed 42 hours of training in Java programming.
  • Used BlueJ and JBuilder to write nine Java programs including a bubble sort, a complex user interface, and a text editor.
  • 8-hours of intensive, hands-on training in AJAX.
  • Created dynamic photo site using script.aculo.us AJAX controls.
  • Used the Dojo Toolkit and Ruby On Rails to create an image upload UI and random-image mural generator.

AJAX Boot Camp, AJAXWorld

University of California, Santa Cruz

BA in Philosophy