Technical Writer Engineer

Catherine Anderson

Redondo Beach, CA ***** 310-***-**** *************@*****.***

Technical Writer

Versatile technical writer, editor, and project leader skilled in creating software documentation for database administrators, programmers, and business decision-makers. Able to learn advanced technology and present it in easily understood procedures, feature summaries, and reference documents. Experienced in creating user manuals from requirements analysis through publishing. Learns products by testing examples and procedures. Clear, minimalist writing style helps readers attain their goals. Accomplished at search engine optimization and documenting command-line interfaces, graphical user interfaces, and SQL programming syntax.

Core Strengths

Software documentation Requirements analysis Minimalist writing

Writing new manuals Search engine optimization Reference manuals

Redesigning outdated manuals Project management Testing procedures/examples

Writing procedures DITA Administration guides

Copy editing Content management systems Quick start guides

Technology

Ixiasoft, Oxygen, Astoria, XMetal, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Acrobat, Confluence wiki, JIRA, Snagit, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office, relational databases, Amazon Web Services, SQL, agile development

Professional Experience

SENIOR INFORMATION ENGINEER Jan 2008 – Nov 2019

Teradata Corporation – El Segundo, CA

Wrote customer manuals for database administrators, database designers, SQL programmers, and business end users, transforming disjointed and incomplete product descriptions into clear procedures.

Created a guide for exploring data on Amazon S3 featuring live SQL examples users can run against data on an Amazon bucket.

Wrote three new manuals in a task-oriented, minimalist style. Tested procedures and examples.

Produced search engine optimization guidelines for the department.

Redesigned Release Summary to make it easier for customers to decide whether to use the release, replacing a document that customers found too long, hard to read, and unnecessarily complicated.

Improved Teradata market position by recommending and creating a quick start guide in response to a competitor's sales claim that Teradata Database is too difficult to use.

After the acquisition of Aster, created a reference guide template consolidating the best of two very different sets of company documents.

Conducted a survey of database administrators to gauge opinion of the Database Administration manual, a seldom-downloaded book receiving customer complaints.

>Rewrote content to describe separately the tasks of DBAs who write and optimize code and those who are in charge of daily system operations.

>The manual went from unpopular to the most downloaded in the Teradata book set.

Transformed a complex 1,600-page SQL functions book that was too large for the automated QA program, divided the content into categories, and created three new books, enabling all documents to pass the automated QA.

CATHERINE ANDERSON – Page 2

310-***-**** *************@*****.***

PROJECT LEADER – INFORMATION ENGINEERING Jan 1998 – Dec 2008

Teradata Corporation – El Segundo, CA

Gathered requirements for new multimedia database documents, hired a technical writing team, and oversaw the development of an API guide, SQL syntax guide, database administration guide, user guide, and release notes.

>Completed a project usually requiring at least 12 months in half the time

>Reviewed book outlines and chapters, designed a GUI for the documentation CD-ROM, and conducted user studies to refine it.

Led a 10-member information engineering team for several Teradata Database releases.

Reviewed program documents, wrote project plans, assigned work, and attended cross-functional team meetings for each project.

Created schedules, resolved issues, and monitored the progress of each project.

Researched and experimented with internal procedures to write clear, repeatable internal processes.

WRITER AND EDITOR – INFORMATION ENGINEERING Oct 1989 – Nov 2008

Teradata Corporation – El Segundo, CA

Updated customer manuals for software development releases.

Copy edited and proofread manuals for conciseness, clarity, and readability to enhance the customer experience.

Wrote clear and accurate copy, engaging with technical team members to obtain an in-depth understanding of the product and the documentation requirements.

Education

Bachelor of Science - Journalism - University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Minor in science and courses in programming

Awards

Getting on with It award for Teradata Database 2550 Appliance Implementation Guide.

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