Rae Davis

Technical Writer

Contact

LinkedIn rae-wood-davis
Twitter Rae Davis

Work

Twitter

Senior Technical Writer

2021-11 — 2023-01

As a senior technical writer at Twitter, I wrote and edited internal technical documentation for machine learning (ML) tools. I also drove cross-team projects for improving the findability and quality of documentation.

  • Drove a cross-team project for cleaning up documentation deadwood. Evaluated tooling dependencies to mitigate risk and managed relevant engineering work.
  • Consulted on a cross-team documentation portal for ML tools as the lead tech writer. Created information architecture for the portal and edited related customer journey documentation.
  • Created a template for a documentation portal that lists cross-team resources. Updated documentation tooling code to make the template available from the command line.
  • Lead meetings and activities for improving team health and processes. This included a discussion on the Tuckman stages of team evolution.

Technical Writer

2020-06 — 2021-11
  • Created self-serve resources for internal engineering teams to write high-quality documentation. This included a style guide, templates and guidelines for document types, information architecture best practices, and single sourcing techniques.
  • Created templates to streamline engagements with engineering teams. This included templates for documentation plans, recommendations, and retros.
  • Taught a technical writing best practices course for internal teams. I taught over 500 students during my time at Twitter and had the highest NPS score among instructors for the course.

VMware

Technical Writer

2018-10 — 2020-06

As a technical writer at VMware (Pivotal Software), I wrote and edited customer-facing technical documentation for MySQL and Single Sign-On products. These products were add-ons for a multi-cloud platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that managed cloud-native applications.

  • Executed initiatives for improving and maintaining a publishing toolchain.
  • Facilitated Team Health Assessments and Anxiety Parties, workshops that are designed to promote “teaminess” and psychological safety.
  • Facilitated working groups for editing an internal wiki and style guide.
  • Presented at college recruiting events about technical writing.

Technical Writer Intern

2018-06 — 2018-10
  • Paired with UX and PM interns to refresh a developer guide for building software on the platform. Led usability testing sessions that generated feedback for revisions.
  • Implemented a Slack bot to send notifications when a build for the documentation website failed. Wrote a procedure explaining how the bot was built and how it can be configured to send other types of notifications.

Bain & Company

Library Assistant Intern

2017-03 — 2018-05

As a library assistant intern at Bain & Company, I was responsible for providing clerical and research support for the Information Services Department.

  • Supported consultant teams with market data curated from business research firms and independent research. Researched topics in the TMT practice area, focusing on semiconductors and cloud services.
  • Created an Excel macro to automate cell formatting for Jumpshot web traffic data, reducing the time needed to pull data from the source. Wrote a procedure explaining how to use and customize the macro.

Education

Mills College

2016-09 — 2018-05
English Language and Literature, Bachelor's Degree
Courses
  • Introduction to Programming
  • Computer Concepts and Intermediate Programming
  • Software Engineering

Columbia University in the City of New York

2010-09 — 2012-12
English Language and Literature

Awards

Phi Beta Kappa

2018-05
Mills College

Skills

Technical Writing

Information architecture, Docs-as-code, and Usability Testing

Documentation Tooling

Sphinx, Jekyll, Git, GitHub, Sublime Text, and Confluence

Markup Languages

Markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, and CSS

Programming Languages

Python, Ruby, and Java

Agile Methodologies

Scrum Master, Jira, and Pivotal Tracker

Game Development

Unity, Inky, and Twine