Kate Donaldson Email & Phone Number

North Chicago, Il, Us

Oakland, Ca, Us

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Boston, Ma, Us

As the manager of the Menus Core team, I:- promote individual and group growth by encouraging goal-setting, professional development utilization, team processes such as pairing and mobbing, and ownership of initiatives for 8 direct reports- partner with peers in product and UX to develop a medium-term strategy for our engineering roadmap, in order to cultivate product adoption of customers with multiple locations and complex access needs- collaborate with stakeholders in the Menus domain at multiple levels to develop a long-term vision for menu data generation, maintenance, and sharing via REST API and GraphQL access- ensure delivery of full-stack features over multiple repositories using Kotlin, React and GraphQL- optimize team processes for efficient development and deployment, spearheading improvements in cross-team communication, documentation, and technical implementation- foster buy-in among stakeholders across the organization by ensuring important initiatives are communicated in a timely manner- develop and mentor interns and co-ops in their temporary roles on the team, incorporating them into team processes and ceremonies, ensuring their work is meaningful and fulfilling, and answering any industry questions they have

Chicago, Il, Us

Engineering- served data about the Nebraska and Illinois reimbursement rates for the federal child care subsidy program in the initial two-state MVP by building a greenfield Rails API with thoughtful architecture around state-specific data- implemented secure authentication and authorization using Devise and JWTs- established a data model using PostgresQL to represent the business logic associated with managing subsidy revenue and billing for child care businesses- implemented formulas for earned revenue, predicted revenue and max revenue for child care providers- saved providers the time and effort of entering attendance data twice by integrating with an external system to import CSV attendance dataStrategy- strategized with the CPO to establish feature priority while still advocating for tackling tech debt at crucial points- defined impact goals and OKRs, establishing measures for success including number of onboarded users, returning users week-over-week, and fundraising goals- defined clear experiments to execute for quick user feedback on product ideasFundraising & Partnership Development- provided product updates and strategic advice to our pilot partner- established and marketed Github Sponsorship program to bring in recurring donations, which attracted two monthly sponsors and several one-time donationsCulture Development and Hiring- drove team-wide conversation about establishing company values to aid in solidifying the culture and mission of the organization- set pay rates for jobs across the organization based on research and minimum pay goals- led the effort to become a certified living wage employer with Living Wage for US- wrote hiring rubrics for roles across multiple teams- built a thorough hiring process to ensure a consistent experience for candidatesTeam Management- reviewed pull requests, paired and delegated work to 1 contractor, 1 intern and a dozen volunteers

Chicago, Illinois, Us

- enabled a client to meet ambitious goals for a nation-wide rollout with over a dozen integrations by building an extensible integration system to connect a Rails API app with CSV flat files, REST APIs, and a SOAP API, under a tight deadline- designed a repeatable process that allowed 10+ engineers on multiple teams to deploy to production weekly by managing deployments and continuous integration using AWS CodeCommit- wrote and explained detailed estimates for client projects in order to close deals with achievable deadlines and reasonable budgets- delivered process documentation across all departments of the organization, in order to onboard staff, help team members make decisions on the fly, and answer challenging questions during client delivery, as well as to ensure that clients get a consistent experience every time- collaborated with the rest of the leadership team to add financial updates to quarterly all-hands meetings, in order to keep the team looped in and build trust- led a company-wide pay equity audit, engaging an external data analyst to explore hiring and compensation data to ensure fair pay for employees across demographics, delivering a high-quality overall report and plan to move forward, establishing a commitment to repeat the process on a regular cadence- ensured fair and equitable practices for evaluating candidates and current employees on an equal playing field by writing hiring rubrics and career path documentation for all levels of engineering

Chicago, Illinois, Us

- helped direct reports achieve their career goals and get the most out of their experience at Tandem by providing guidance, feedback, and a listening ear, as well as advocating for performance-based pay raises for 5 reports- collaborated with clients to define project requirements, wrangling unknowns and unreliable unknowns, including a project in which over a dozen integration partners needed to be onboarded in a limited amount of time- empowered team members to implement and drive client success as a technical lead- provided feedback with candor, transparency, and kindness to my reports, teammates, and to fellow leadership

Chicago, Illinois, Us

- eased delivery constraints and drove continuous integration by containerizing a multi-app client on-premise deployment with Docker, building a networked, deployable ecosystem that blended together Python, Angular, Sinatra, Rails, and React apps, reducing a manual deploy process that took at least 6 hours every week to a 30-minute process- enabled a client to provide an authentication and security layer to meet their customer's needs by building a greenfield React UI on top of a Java backend for device-tracking hardware, modernizing a prior JS implementation , meeting a short turnaround deadline- fostered a comfortable and judgment-free pairing environment with teammates, ensuring a fun learning experience for everyone involved- carried out infrastructure, deployment, and code quality improvements on legacy code on three projects

New York, Us

- built integrations with Twilio and Retool to aid the non-technical staff in customer support tasks- modernized a legacy Ruby app by building new features in Rails- managed automated deploys to production- performed code reviews, and paired with volunteer contributors

Chicago, Illinois, Us

- refactored memory retention during report generation to improve performance by a factor of 10- added features to the platform that improved workflow and efficiency, fully spec'ed from back-end to front-end- advised and influenced DEI efforts as a member of the company's inaugural DEI forum

Chicago, Illinois, Us

- extracted canonical data from an internal Rails & Postgres implementation to an external graph data API using Neo4j and Rails- led two teams of engineers to deliver a complex feature set that successfully landed our largest deal with a major Fortune 200 financial firm- deployed the customer-facing app on a regular basis and improved continuous delivery outcomes by implementing automation, continuous integration, and testing, becoming a Heroku expert along the way.- implemented a message queueing publisher to communicate data changes from our API to its consumer over multiple queues- served as technical lead for the team responsible for canonical data and worked with the CTO, VP of Product, and VP of Data Science to outline milestones for quality and process improvement- implemented agile processes for my development team in order to normalize delivery and scope projects- spearheaded scoping efforts for a large versioning feature, bringing together Product, business domain experts, and engineers to plan work according to customer needs

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Connecting world-class companies with talented and diverse women.At the Mom Project, I streamlined essential engineering functions:- implemented a clear, iterative development process- rolled out a bug report/feature request process for staff- enacted a feature planning lifecycle based on user-focused product development- initiated department meetings for transparency in hiring and product milestone planningI rearchitected our existing application onto a more modern platform, using Rails 5, React, and Postgres. As a part of this process, I:- dockerized the app for consistency of local development environments and simplification of deployment- integrated AWS Cognito with Rails to leverage a robust authentication system to safeguard user information- automated the testing and deployment process using CircleCI and Github- planned and oversaw the implementation of containerized deployment through ECS using CloudFormation- built a fully-featured REST API using Rails 5's API-only capabilitiesI also redesigned the data model in order to streamline queries and data handling:- normalized data- shedded unnecessary data collection- offloaded some internal data processes to third-party proven services to simplify in-house data maintenance

Chicago, Il, Us

- built a greenfield Rails and React app that provided useful information about financial decisions to end users- maintained the internal JS app that configured huge swaths of data to ensure end users got accurate information about their benefits- added features to an internal portal built in Rails that helped non-technical folks deploy conversations through continuous integration- encouraged my team to give GraphQL a shot, and drove the development of our GraphQL environment, which paid off for our product- shipped a gorgeous NodeJS app- added new functionality to our existing Rails powerhouse- tinkered with our Angular and React front-end experiences- maintained legacy apps using PHP & JS- spearheaded some internal diversity initiatives as a cofounder of the Women in Tech group- acted as company liaison and sponsor to a coding club for high school women- represented the company in the community at various events, conferences and workshops

Chicago, Illinois, Us

- wrangled APIs by writing clean code and harnessing Rails' MVC organizational structure- styled and manipulated 3rd party CMS systems using clever JS and jQuery- served small content needs by developing lightweight and elegant static sites- managed PHP-based CMS systems like Wordpress with clever use of version-controlled code and plugins- determined the best and most efficient software and project management solutions by communicating with my team to explore options based on our available work-hours and skillset- advised the strategic branch of the organization on ways to improve efficiency, develop long-term strategy, and clarify roles and responsibilities- assisted the Vice President of the company in successfully rolling out organizational and role changes to handle a shifting customer base and project load

In this role I helped non-technical clients establish a web presence by:- developing new sites in WordPress by hand-coding PHP and modifying available templates- advising clients on graphic design and branding- refactoring existing sites to allow for client content management by porting systems to WordPress

- provided support and testing for EDP and billing software- led testing and tech development projects in conjunction with the IT department- improved inter-departmental communications and facilitated discussion between executives and employees as an active member of the communications team- evaluated new business, renewals and reinstatements through manual online EDP system

- managed software, data systems, CRM, websites, Quickbooks, Microsoft Suite, Firehouse, printers, peripherals, and various operating systems- supported and trained clients on fire industry-specific software including database management and integration with Firehouse- initiated and cultivated client relationships throughout implementation and post-implementation phases of project management- Creating clear and concise training manuals and support documents; proofreading internal and external documents

Bachelor Of Science, Theatre Education, Theatre Design/Production, History Education

Web Development

Film Production

Diploma, General