Projects

I’ve done some great work at VMware, The Good Docs Project, and Tech Elevator over the past four years. Read on to learn more.

VMware

Time: October 2021 - now

Description: A leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, enabling digital innovation with enterprise control.

Links: vmware.com

Projects:

• Automation Assembler

Currently, I own the documentation for using plugin-based designs in Automation Assembler. Plug-in based architecture allows users to access resources and properties as defined and documented by the cloud provider, such as Google Cloud, rather than the properties defined by Aria Automation.

I work with a team of 2-4 software engineers and product managers to produce the documentation.

• Automation Config

I was one of two technical writers responsible for the Aria Automation Config (formerly SaltStack Config) documentation. Automation Config is a modern configuration management platform with the performance, speed, and agility IT teams need to manage large, complex IT systems and improve efficiency at scale.

I worked with a team of 2-4 software engineers, quality engineers, support services personnel, user experience designers, and product managers to produce documentation for Automation Config.

Authoring tools: Oxygen Author

Work samples

Getting started documentation

• Getting Started with Automation Config: a SaaS-only publication. Helps users set up and access their SaaS instance of Automation Config. Built from scratch.

How-to guides

• How do I connect to the cloud API: a how-to guide that shows users how to connect to Automation Config’s cloud API and make a sample API call. Built from scratch.

Longform tutorials

• Using the Highstate workspace: a mixture of task and conceptual content. Explains what highstate is and how to run highstate in the Automation Config UI. Built from scratch.
• Configuring plug-in based storage bucket resources: a mixture of task and conceptual content. Contains sample templates customers can use to deploy single, dual, or multi-region storage buckets in Google Cloud. I collaborated with engineering to identify the use cases to document and the best templates to include.

The Good Docs Project

Time: April 2021 - now

Description: The Good Docs Project focuses on creating best practice templates and writing instructions for documenting open source software.

Links: thegooddocsproject.dev

Project: I am a member of the project steering committee, a community manager, and a working group lead for one of our template working groups. I work with some awesome folks who are passionate about documentation. Some of my projects include:

• Creating a tutorial template.
• Building The Good Dogs Project, a website used during our Git training sessions.
• Co-designing curriculum for our Git training, which we run 1-2 times a year.

Authoring tools: Hugo for building Git training site

Tech I use: Git, GitLab

Tech Elevator

Time: August 2019 - October 2021

Description: A leading full-stack coding bootcamp and career prep program helping individuals and companies acquire in-demand skills for the modern workforce. Tech Elevator’s curriculum teaches students programming foundations, back-end development, and web programming.

Links: techelevator.com

Project: I was the sole technical writer responsible for editing the company’s technical curriculum. I worked with a team of 2-4 technical curriculum developers and the company’s chief academic officer to produce curriculum for students and instructors. Some of my other projects include:

• Building the team’s first style guide to help standardize style and grammar decisions.
• Testing tutorials to ensure instructions were accurate.
• Implementing Vale for the team’s documentation to enforce style guide conventions.
• Building a release notes generator using Python to automate release note creation process.
• Speaking at Write the Docs 2021 about style guides!

Authoring tools: VuePress

Tech I used: Git, GitLab, Vale for linting docs