Profile
Project manager with extensive experience working with geographically separated, cross-functional teams, first as a technical writer providing internal software documentation and then as a scrum master and engineering project manager providing scheduling and and communications support.
Current position as an engineering project manager in a large software group at Apple managing future project development, from project start to alpha and then assisting through GM and delivery. Prior experience includes working as a technical writer, writing internal software documentation and writing product help. A proven record of quickly learning new, highly-complex concepts and communicating successfully with diverse cross-functional teams.
Enjoys working with team members across all functional areas. Deep software development experience.
Specialities and Interests
Project management of cross-functional, geographically-dispersed development, product documentation, organization, task prioritization, proofreading, scrum, agile, scuba diving, and personal technology.
Experience
Engineering Project Manager, Apple Inc. – 2011 to Present
Manage high-level schedule for all upcoming projects through Alpha milestone. Provide project management support across entire engineering group responsible for six major applications.
Provide detailed schedule support to one large engineering team, giving them feature work burndowns across one-month milestones and providing detailed OmniPlan (Microsoft Project equivalent) schedule.
Scrum master for three engineering teams, in two remote locations. Provide day-to-day problem solving, scheduling support, and facilitate communication with other engineering teams.
Responsible for tracking third-party engineering dependencies, communicating with team's needs and priorities.
Monitored checkins to ensure that code was being reviewed and only approved fixes are taken. Sent out daily build announcements including information about what had changed and what OS, SDK, etc. were used when building.
Loaded applications and their supporting metadata to Mac App Store and iTunes Store for several releases. Provide editing support to marketing team for material in the store and and support articles for website.
Products that I've worked on as an EPM on: iBooks 2.0 (iOS), and iBooks Author (OS X), Keynote (iOS and OS X), Keynote Remote (iOS), Numbers (iOS and OS X), Pages (iOS and OS X).
Technical Writer, Apple Inc. – 2004 to 2011
Wrote and maintained software engineering specifications, functional specifications, and some design specifications. Helped maintain process documentation. Reviewed all string changes in software suite and worked to implement string changes within code. Managed communication between documentation and engineering teams.
Provided project management support to engineering project managers within productivity team: monitoring checkins, sending daily build announcements.
Engineering project manager for initial development and three subsequent releases of the Keynote Remote iPhone app.
Technical Writing Intern, Ansys Inc. – 2004
Worked with documentation group and subject matter experts to revise existing and write new end-user help documentation, using Arbortext Epic Publisher and MKS Source Integrity.
Webmaster and Designer, Celiacnet.com – 2004 to Present
Develop and maintain celiac disease help site at celiacnet.com.
Freelance Editor – 2003
Edited a book for a previously unpublished author. Helped prepare the book for future publication. Book published in 2006 (Stepping Out of the Parade: True and Free-Spirited Stories as Told by a Truly Free Spirit, by Jay Schaffer).
Education
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA – B.S., Technical Writing & Communication, minor, Jazz Performance (voice), 2003
UC Santa Cruz Extension, Santa Clara, CA – Certificate, Project and Program Management, 2011
Methodologies studied: Traditional, Critical Chain, Agile, Scrum.
Certifications
Scrum Alliance – Certified Scrum Master, 2011
Project Management Institute – PMI-ACP, 2012