Susan Weston Email & Phone Number

Built a new "Get Started" site for Windows developers, to help developers write UWP apps for Windows 10. Lots of coordination with marketing, and focus on improving SEO and discoverability.Designed and shipped "little victories" to get devs past the bottlenecks in our funnel, based on real-time user data.My focus on this project was making the initial contact seamless & easy, in spite of many teams across Microsoft that contributed content and software to this dev experience. My… Show more Built a new "Get Started" site for Windows developers, to help developers write UWP apps for Windows 10. Lots of coordination with marketing, and focus on improving SEO and discoverability.Designed and shipped "little victories" to get devs past the bottlenecks in our funnel, based on real-time user data.My focus on this project was making the initial contact seamless & easy, in spite of many teams across Microsoft that contributed content and software to this dev experience. My job was to ensure we weren't just ''shipping our org chart" but that the end-to-end flow across platforms and tools was simple and delightful. Show less

Lead writer for V1 and V2 of Microsoft's new partner site, focused on reseller programs. Worked extensively with design and the dev team to build a minimalist and actionable UI funnel into partner programs, and dashboards for different audiences. Crafted UI text, Help/How-to content, and developer documentation. This was a fun and challenging project because it fell at the intersection of many teams and roles (partner programs, legal, marketing, sales, and support, plus multiple… Show more Lead writer for V1 and V2 of Microsoft's new partner site, focused on reseller programs. Worked extensively with design and the dev team to build a minimalist and actionable UI funnel into partner programs, and dashboards for different audiences. Crafted UI text, Help/How-to content, and developer documentation. This was a fun and challenging project because it fell at the intersection of many teams and roles (partner programs, legal, marketing, sales, and support, plus multiple traditional dev teams including the Partner Center team, teams in Office, Azure, etc.) -- we still managed to launch sites and docs on time (globally, with full localization) thanks to my project planning, scope management, and attention to detail. We also did it with a bare-bones writing team (1-3 writers, and partial time from a site manager, SEO, and loc) keeping pace with nearly 100 engineers and 5 designers. An endurance challenge, but we got the content out the door! Show less

Created new technical brochures and handouts to introduce Microsoft's Energy-Smart Buildings project to other interested companies, schools, and governments. Microsoft is amazing: designing a new data-centric approach that reduces energy usage and upkeep costs on campus. I wrote content for people who are interested in replicating this approach in their own buildings.http://www.microsoft.com/energysmartbuildingsI also wanted great numbers for our internal and external… Show more Created new technical brochures and handouts to introduce Microsoft's Energy-Smart Buildings project to other interested companies, schools, and governments. Microsoft is amazing: designing a new data-centric approach that reduces energy usage and upkeep costs on campus. I wrote content for people who are interested in replicating this approach in their own buildings.http://www.microsoft.com/energysmartbuildingsI also wanted great numbers for our internal and external updates so we could prove out the value of energy-smart infrastucture, and so I did a lot of data analytics and project management for this project to drive the great results I wanted to claim in our reports. Lots of Excel, SQL, macros, infographics. So satisfying!! Show less

Technical writer on the Window Phone team. I wrote documentation for OEMs to use as they built phones and customized the operating system. My biggest contribution was creating the Customization Guide that was published to OEM and mobile operator partners. It was meant for a wide, global audience -- software developers, lawyers, deal-makers, etc... and meant to facilitate everything from adding mobile operators to our fold, to the Nokia deal. It contained over 100 topics including code… Show more Technical writer on the Window Phone team. I wrote documentation for OEMs to use as they built phones and customized the operating system. My biggest contribution was creating the Customization Guide that was published to OEM and mobile operator partners. It was meant for a wide, global audience -- software developers, lawyers, deal-makers, etc... and meant to facilitate everything from adding mobile operators to our fold, to the Nokia deal. It contained over 100 topics including code samples which I wrote and tested, spanning the development work and OEM/MO relationships of the entire Windows Phone team. The Customization Guide was both a technical challenge (that sort of integration testing didn't exist on the team at that time, so I was a unique tester in the org), and a communications challenge. As a tech writer: how to publish these features, their code samples, and testing advice in a way that people could absorb.I have also written documentation for phone update, applications, services, device management, globalization, UI, and developer tools. Show less

Wrote, ran, and debugged daily test cases for pre-release Silverlight. Built Silverlight applications for integration testing to verify that the language worked to spec, then wrote automated BVTs to verify that the app results remained consistent over daily check-ins. Primarily used C++, C#, XAML, XML, and console scripting.

Wrote web-based administrative software for the Boston Public Schools. The old system used a mainframe (!), we replaced it with a .NET UI and a SQL backend.

Wrote 3D graphics code for an early version of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Specifically, I implemented clipping regions and integrated them into existing geometrical functions. I prototyped a connection to DirectX to improve performance for 3D graphics and animations.My team extended an FTE offer at the end of the summer.

Reviewed and edited the textbook Java How to Program, Fourth Edition for correctness and clarity. Created ancillary materials including exams and practice programs with solutions.

Designed and coded a user preferences dialog for an online Java application that monitored a nationwide communications system.

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Computer Science

TA for CS15 (Intro to Object Oriented Programming, Prof. Andy van Dam, Fall '00 and '02 TA for CS32 (Intro to Software Engineering), Prof..

Education record