Another contract for Salesforce.com, on the Platform Trusted Services team as a Principal Technical Writer, writing about Shield Platform Encryption. In this role I created three types of documentation.

I did some deep diving into generative AI, learned how to use it in support of large documentation projects for creating and maintaining technical content for programmers and analysts. I earned four Coursera certificates during this time. Check my profile for details!

My contract was for Salesforce.com, on the Platform Trusted Services team as a Principal Technical Writer, writing about Shield Platform Encryption. In this role I created three types of documentation. * First, I created Trailhead content that enables users to familiarize themselves with the main features and technical concepts of Shield Platform Encryption.* Second, I created online Help documentation for the Shield Platform Encryption product, which included user information for Salesforce administrators who need to configure encryption features, set up key management, and do other administrative tasks for the Platform Encryption product.* Third, I wrote highly technical architectural guides for security professionals who need to learn the deep technical aspects of the Shield Platform Encryption product. They use these guides in determining whether the key management and encryption characteristics of Shield Platform Encryption are compliant with their needs.

I enabled VR developers to develop awesome virtual reality applications for the Meta Quest (Oculus) platform. Specializing in the Unity Game Engine platform, I created easy-to-follow tutorials and samples documentation that provided examples in key areas of the Meta Insight SDK. These included Passthrough, Scene, Shared Scene, Spatial Anchors, and Share Spatial Anchor features.In addition, I overhauled a good portion of the Insight SDK documentation, making it easier for developers to find and understand this complex product.

Upgraded my skills in Tableau CRM, Hedera, Jekyll, and blockchain technology.

Salesforce's Einstein Vision and Language capabilities. Einstein Vision enables image detection, object classification, and OCR. Einstein Language include Sentiment, Intent, and Named Entity Recognition. As primary writer for these technologies, I provide the external content that helps customers succeed, as well as the internal infrastructure content that enables our developers to build great Salesforce features and assist customers with critical analysis of their data.

Continuing my work at Salesforce in this role, I lead the operations content space for a critical Salesforce Hyperforce program in support of a multinational private client. This project requires collaboration with over 100 internal Salesforce teams. I joined this program in 2018, and working from a nebulous mass of unknowns, I scoped the content, assembled and trained the doc team, and developed and implemented the content workflow. I mentored my peers and other cross-functional stakeholders who contributed content to the program. As project scrum leader I owned the content effort, led content generation, template standardization, workflow, and project metrics. I also filled the role of technical author and reviewer, and generally represented the documentation project throughout the company. In addition to my work on this program, I also provided writing support for complex content needs at short notice for several core infrastructure teams whose services are key to the compliance and security of the Salesforce Hyperforce product.

The Salesforce application is a giant cloud presence composed of hundreds of custom and open source services. It is nevertheless versatile, running in proprietary data centers, in the public cloud, and in self-contained environments isolated from the Internet. It is a many faceted juggernaut, that helps customers run their business at any scale. You can imagine that there's a lot of hardware and software dedicated to Salesforce, and a couple of battalions of talented engineers who need documentation on how it is deployed, as well as concise information on the many custom tools they use to keep Salesforce going and improving. The documentation is key to everything -- that's where I come in. As part of the trusted voice of Infrastructure Engineering, I supported the Salesforce engineers and site infrastructure site operators by providing content and tools that helped them more efficiently extend, build, deploy, and support the Salesforce application.Among other things, I:* created a structure and workflow to deliver 200 new operator runbooks to site operators * created metrics dashboards to track documentation workflows progress* developed new content for dozens of infrastructure services, and curated the content for dozens more* wrote a series of articles training new hire developers on 15 critical development tools* shepherded the deployment of a major internal developer information portal* mentored cohort and junior writers in ways to tackle their writing work and careers* organized and led fireside chats with key end users * owned and drove an internal documentation consulting service * wrote a Salesforce Trail on how teams can maintain their internal docs in a agile way* presented Tech Talks on efficient writing strategies* updated a collection of a dozen internal Google Sites for style, content, and structureThere's a lot more in the mix. I'm basically open to any challenge at work.

As a permanent senior TPM for BluePrint Consulting Services, I led technology solution efforts for BluePrint clients. Some of my responsibilities included:* Worked with existing in-place and virtual teams to implement and monitor pilot support offerings. When pilots proved successful, I led the follow-up application efforts that aligned with broader business needs.* Assessed opportunities to extend work to other markets and languages.* Worked with client leads to develop strategies for audience support offering frameworks, engaging with key stakeholders across product marketing, sales, and support teams.* Worked across multiple projects, I clarified project goals, workstreams, team members, and so on, and managed risks, drove communications, ensured that stakeholders were informed, and ultimately delivered high quality, timely results.

Co-founder of a startup company that worked to bring a disruptive security software product to market. At Secure Gravity, we created a groundbreaking identity management solution that would have revolutionized access control. My role in this effort was to drive the product concepts and designs to real-world solution, and I was successful in those efforts. * Worked with top-level executives in creating product strategy* Planed product designs* Developed architecture* Planned the development budget* Managed two development teams* Owned all product schedules* Developed patentable technology specifications* ... and 1M other things you do in a startup!Though we were successful in creating a working Secure Gravity prototype, we were unsuccessful at raising enough funding to bring it fully to market.

As a senior temporary consultant, I was engaged to support various efforts for WideNet clients. During this period I helped the Seattle company All Star Directories overhaul the technical documentation for its All Star suite of products (from free docs to a Salesforce FAQ). Since 2001, All Star has focused on helping individuals advance their careers and improve their lives through education, and my work there enabled All Star customers to fine tune their search experience to the needs of their end users.This was my first exposure to Salesforce as a content help medium. In less than a month I was able to work out the nuances of the platform, port all the content, and add needed enhancements.

I helped Terra Technology develop "Version New.0" of its flagship supply chain products.During my short time at Terra, I helped the development team understand the technical options - both in framework and in programming technologies - that were optimal for them for upgrading the user interface for their best-in-class client-server supply chain and demand sensing software. This required an understanding of the current version design and features, as well as a thorough review of the skillsets of their current developers. Unfortunately, customer order cancellations required shelving many projects until 2015, among them my project.

Managed and drove to completion multiple concurrent software development projects which supported Amazon's global security, global business continuity, and customer fulfillment technologies organizations. Projects were often time sensitive, cross regional, and required several areas of functional involvement on my part. Team sizes varied, but tended to be small and focused on critical deliverables, and involved members from internal cross-functional and remote project teams. All projects were agile, with me serving as scrum leader. Project management tasks often required me to make appropriate tradeoffs in schedule and product features, and clearly communicate goals, roles, responsibilities, and desired outcomes to senior management. Depending on the urgency and labor available, I often contributed technically as the need arose.

Designed, created, and drove to completion multiple concurrent projects which support Amazon's Global Security Organization. Applications ranged from custom java data connectors; web-based policy management tools; fulfillment, inventory and quality metrics reports rendered using custom graphics as well as integrated Tableau visualizations. My projects, which typically involved both vendors and multiple teams across the organization, often required me to take leading technical and project management roles.

Designed, managed, and maintained the ever-expanding documentation build process for the Amazon Web Services Documentation team. The process used Apache Ant, DocBook, a couple dozen Open Source tools and libraries, and Amazon's in-house build support engines to crank out the AWS developer documentation (at the time, nearly 200K pages).

At Amazon, I wore several hats:• I was the primary writer for several AWS products, including Amazon's Flexible Payment System (FPS), Amazon VPC, and others.• I worked with internal product teams, solution architects, and technical account managers to write AWS whitepapers and solution documents.• I ran and configured the documentation build system (a customized DocBook 4x / 1.76 implemetation).

Analysis and documentation of network protocols in support of the Open Source Protocol Compliance project.Also, in support of the project, created a collaboration portal using SharePoint 2007, which enabled writers, editors, and XML validation specialists to collaborate on the use of the 450 XML markup tags required for content generation. The site incorporated a number of custom Web Parts supporting per-tag discussion lists, usage example libraries, related tag navigation, automatic Exchange Server notification, and version control.

Designed and built ASP.Net applications and web services for the ForAgentsOnly.com portal. Applications supported insurance agents with real time critical business data in a secure and scalable fashion.

Extended Moen’s customer-facing SAP Portal to enable self-service parts ordering. I created Java iViews from scratch using J2EE, JSP, and SAP’s HTMLB within the SAP Enterprise Portal. Wrote Java code to connect the iViews directly to the R/3 backend, retrieving data from custom BAPI objects.

Migrated a 2 terabyte IBM IMS database to a SQL Server 2000 database. Wrote custom T-SQL stored procedures, DTS packages, and C# code.