I joined Microsoft working on the Data Pipeline team in OneDrive/SharePoint, delivering the Feedback API used by UX teams to personalize user experiences and improve ML models. After nine months on this team, I wanted to work on a part of the product that users directly interact with, so I switched to the Personalized Intelligence and Experiences team (also within ODSP) and moved into a web development role, focusing on enhancing File Intelligence and SharePoint News experiences.
On the PIE team, I implemented and shipped the Conversations on the File Card feature, which aggregates email and Teams messages relevant to a file in a single surface. Our CVP described this as his favorite new feature, and personally demoed it at Microsoft Ignite 2019 as part of his keynote. I also reduced File Card render latency by 25% for its 25 million MAU by monitoring and analyzing telemetry to pinpoint areas of improvement. I had another opportunity to work on an Ignite feature in 2020, News Boost, which improves corporate communications delivery by giving corporate communications managers more control over ranking and prioritization of news posts. This was again demoed as part of the SharePoint keynote at Ignite, and is leveraged in Viva Connections.
Despite the challenges that quarantine WFH imposed, I embraced the opportunity to mentor an intern and lead his project during an entirely remote internship, anticipating new difficulties that he would encounter and addressing them so that he could have a fun, productive, and educational experience in spite of the pandemic. He did a fantastic job and accepted a return offer.
More recently, I volunteered to be the Hackthon champ for my team, helping organize events, generating excitement, and incentivizing people to participate.
Redmond, WA
August 2018—Present
I worked for EF Tours, a division of EF Education First that sells educational tours to students and teachers around the world. EF aims to educate through cultural exchange and travel, so EF Tours is essential to the brand.
As a developer intern, I was embedded in a full-time team consisting of other developers, business analysts, and a UX designer. We developed a new tour consolidation web application using React/Redux and the C# .NET Framework, designed to be much more intuitive, user-friendly, and ultimately more efficient than the antiquated software that the company was still using.
Given that tour consolidation is a central part of EF Tours' operations and business model, upper management was particularly interested in our project and its potential to deliver enormous business value to EF. I had the opportunity to participate in the Scrum/Agile framework, working closely with various stakeholders.
Boston, MA
June 2017—August 2017
Down Dog App is a yoga app startup unique in that it does away with the static videos that its competitors use, and instead generates yoga sequences from a server. This allows the app to have endless content and customization, making it a true yoga studio experience.
As a software design engineering intern, I designed several new features of the app using Sketch, and implemented the features on iOS and Android. I also designed several upcoming features for future implementation, including advanced settings, practice history, stats, and offline mode. Designing and implementing these features was essential to Down Dog App's freemium business model, as in order to acquire more paid users, freemium apps must add paid features; later users are always more difficult to convert than early users, so a freemium app needs to continually seek ways to add to its value proposition in order to see continued growth. One of my projects resulted in a spike in paid subscriptions.
In addition to designing and implementing new features, I adjusted the app's UI to be responsive for multiple screen sizes and completely redesigned Down Dog's website.
Seattle, WA
June 2016—August 2016
Brown Computer Science's TA program is an essential component of the department. Professors rely heavily on TA staff to help run their courses and answer students' needs.
As a TA for a large introductory course, I held weekly office hours, held weekly section to review lecture topics, graded homework and projects, mentored individual students, and discussed and implemented ways to improve the course with other TAs, students, and the professor.
I found being a TA to be one of the best ways to give back to the CS department and enrich student experience.
Providence, RI
Fall 2017, Spring 2016