Cathy Sullivan Email & Phone Number

Seattle, Wa, Us

Redmond, Washington, Us

June 2020 - PresentLeading the .NET Runtime, Libraries, Growth and AI/Data PM teams.September 2018 to June 2020Lead for the Visual Studio Acquisition and Retention PM team focusing on the developer onboarding experience and how we can grow and cultivate a stronger developer community.

Redmond, Washington, Us

Reinvented the way developers get up and running with Visual Studio and quickly get to their code. Led customer and product development efforts (cohort identification, customer interviews/studies, hypothesis generation and validation, iterative designs, etc.) to re-imagine the acquisition and install experience of Visual Studio to enable better customization (only install what you need, smaller footprint) and higher reliability so more developers install the right tools needed for their development environment.After reaching higher levels of reliability and delivering a much improved experience driven by customer and data led design and feedback, I focused on improving our acquisition (install) funnel by identifying drop offs and running A/B experiments on the web and in-product to enable quick and iterative learning through data insights and qualitative surveys. Many of these experiments shipped permanently as they resulted in higher conversions, which ultimately led to shifting my focus to developer retention using many of these same experimentation methods with a virtual team of PMs from across the Developer Division.

Redmond, Washington, Us

During this time, I was responsible for designing and delivering C#/Visual Basic IDE features in the editor and core foundational experiences for the Visual Studio shell/IDE. I led efforts from bringing better code navigation and understanding to developers to designing and shipping the dark editor and IDE theme for Visual Studio. I also drove enhancements to core UI experiences for all developers including windowing, commanding, document management, color themes & styles (including the beloved DARK THEME!), image management, and notifications.I spoke at many external conferences like DevIntersection, VSLive!, BUILD, Ignite, and in the Microsoft Channel9 studio on What’s New in Visual Studio and Tips & Tricks.

Redmond, Washington, Us

Designed, implemented, and tested UI experiences, middle tier services, security models, performance improvements, and database components across the internal Microsoft Human Resources Performance Management suite of tools (performance and rewards-based tools for internal Microsoft employees). I led contingent staff while guiding the design and development of their features and components, reviewing their project deliverables, and keeping tasks on track. I evangelized code quality, unit testing, and build best practices across the development team and quickly became the subject matter expert for the team’s build and deployment automation which cut our deployment time down from hours to just minutes.Technologies: Visual Studio, C#, .NET, SQL, Team Foundation Server, MSBuild, InfoPath development, SharePoint integration

Redmond, Washington, Us

Developed, tested, and deployed .NET web/windows applications and services that Microsoft business units like HR, Finance, Supply Chain used to connect to SAP for their line of business applications. I prototyped new SAP and .NET technologies for use within Microsoft IT and evaluated their use as a replacement for the current implementation. Later, I became the technical lead for engineering team’s source control and work item/bug tracking migration. On the side, I worked as a member of the Women’s Focus Group Core Team to initiate efforts to recruit and retain women in our division.

Boston, Ma, Us

Responsible for development and support of the web applications used by the Neurology Acute Stroke Service and Partners TeleStroke Center. I closely collaborated with the Director and the Program Coordinator of the TeleStroke program to determine the portal application requirements of doctors, physicians, and client hospitals while enhancing the applications to be scalable based on projected growth within the Telestroke program for future portal deployments to potential nation-wide client hospitals.

Cambridge, Ma, Us

Worked as a development consultant on large Endeca e-commerce search implementations that involved coding front end (UI) and back end feature enhancements for product merchandising, developing automated scripts to upload performance results automatically, and assist with post-live support for various e-commerce sites.

Cincinnati, Ohio, Us

Lead Developer on the Global Intranet team responsible for designing and delivering internal websites and CRM-like sites for Gillette business units to assist in their day-to-day work. Responsibilities ranged from producing site mock ups/wire frames to building complex marketing applications for continuous data collection, document collection, and collaboration among global marketing divisions.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, Us

Designed and developed several dynamic public facing websites for Harvard University’s departments and clients using PHP, JavaScript, and mySQL. I defined and implemented the use of templates to dynamically apply website standards across the sites, which ultimately led to a role of owning the E2E development of the Harvard Wireless (access point finder) site.

Boston, Massachusetts, Us

Worked at the Sasaki Associates help desk where I answered both technical software and hardware questions and addressed issues in person for the entire company of over 200 employees. I setup desktop and laptops for new employees and managed the existing employee machines upgrade pipeline as well.

B.S., Information Science

Education record