Lia Adams

Experience

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  Stanford University

  Jan 1983 - Jan 1988

  PhD student and teaching assistant
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  Sun Microsystems

  Jan 1989 - Jan 1990

  Member Technical Staff

  + Worked on dby, an advanced client/server debugger, implementing commands in the process control server and extending a tcl interface to them. + Documented the debugger's API for saving symbol-table information.

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  Silicon Graphics Inc

  Jan 1990 - Jan 1996

  Member technical staff, software

  As one of the first software developers building the WorkShop software development tool suite, I contributed to the design, implementation, and release of the graphical debugger and static analyzer. WorkShop won the Jolt Award for programmer productivity. My activities included+ Interviewing customers about the software tools they needed+ Proposing and designing features for our programming tools+ Negotiating with other groups in the company to enhance their code to support our tools+ Developing server-side product code in C, C++, and Ada 95+ Communicating with engineers on the WorkShop team to ensure smooth internal integration+ Writing internal and external documentation+ Demonstrating the products to users+ Training customers and marketing staff+ Creating automated tests for regression detection+ Augmenting symbol tables+ Adding queries to the code analyzer and browser+ Implementing debug-time expression evaluation+ Defining an API for definitions and uses of symbols Show less

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  Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL)

  May 1996 - Dec 1998

  Senior Research Scientist

  Research in Collaborative Virtual Spaces, Adaptive Software, and Tangible User Interfaces, earning 4 US patents.+ Co-authored reports and papers, wrote patents, and gave technical workshops at Fuji Xerox Corporate Research Lab in Japan.+ As the project lead for collaboration through virtual spaces, I planned projects, budgeted and allocated resources, and coordinated project members' activities. I led the team in deploying virtual spaces on the intranet. + In adaptive software, I helped create a prototype system for creating programs by manipulating objects as tools for actual programming. To investigate opportunities for tangible interfaces, I observed people giving presentations and analyzed their activities to guide our group's design and prototype of the Palette physical interface. Show less

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  Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

  Jan 1998 - Jan 2000

  Creative Consultant
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  Lia Adams Consulting

  Dec 1999 - Dec 2005

  Senior Technical Writer, Contract
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  Reasoning

  Jan 2000 - Jan 2000

  Domain Expert and Writer (contract)

  Consulted on the functionality and user interface for a new programming environment product. I interviewed internal users, helped formulate the user interface requirements, and documented the implementation plan, including interfaces to the configuration management system, the source-code analyzer, and the database schema.

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  Expert Support Inc

  Jan 2000 - Jan 2006

  Technical Writer (contract)

  Worked on contracts for Reasoning, Adobe, and Sony Computer Entertainment at various times from 2000-2006.

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  Transmeta

  Jan 2000 - Jan 2001

  Technical writer

  I contributed to the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) document for a new processor. Responsibilities included:+ Interviewing hardware designers.+ Reading bit layouts of instruction words to describe in English.+ Scripting the rebuild process for a multi-purpose ISA document that could be used to generate both human-readable text and compilable C code.

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  Stanford University

  Jan 2003 - Jan 2003

  Instructor

  Taught CS 143 Compilers, the undergraduate course in fundamental compiler concepts: scanning, parsing, semantic analysis, type checking, runtime environments, intermediate formats, optimization, register allocation, and garbage collection.The students complete a working compiler for a simple Java-like language.

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  Adobe

  Jan 2004 - Jan 2005

  Technical Writer (contract)

  Wrote, edited, and updated software and hardware documentation.+ Documented prerelease versions of the PlayStation Graphics Library (PSGL) API for game developers targeting the PlayStation3.+ Edited assembly language and C++ manuals for Sony's PPU and SPU processors. Made numerous changes to improve clarity and correctness.+ Wrote 29 Starting Guides to help game developers start writing game software for the PlayStation3.+ Documented SDKs and APIs for OEMs developing products based on Acrobat, PostScript, and PhotoShop.+ Did writing and extensive editing on an Adobe mathematical paper describing PhotoShop's Healing Brush algorithm and how it adapts to properties of human vision.+ Did writing and extensive editing on an Adobe whitepaper "Implementation of Black Point Compensation" explaining PhotoShop's algorithm adapting the level of black in an image for different devices. Show less

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  Sony Computer Entertainment

  Jan 2005 - Jan 2006

  Technical Writer (contract)

  Wrote, edited, and updated documentation for the graphics software and architecture for the Sony PlayStation3.+ Documented prerelease versions of the PlayStation Graphics Library (PSGL) API for game developers targeting the PlayStation3.+ Edited assembly language and C++ manuals for Sony's PPU and SPU processors. Made numerous changes to improve clarity and correctness.+ Wrote 29 Starting Guides to help game developers start writing game software for the PlayStation3.

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  Google, Inc

  May 2007 - Nov 2011

  Technical Communication

  As a Senior Technical Writer at Google I planned, wrote, edited, and updated internal technical documentation. + Procedure: observed, interviewed, and documented internal procedures for the group of engineers in charge of system reliability of Google Search.+ Instruction: Wrote two tutorials and a 100-page user guide for Borgmon, the crucial internal system for monitoring Google services in the field. Borgmon is the fundamental tool for system monitoring, but documentation for it was non-existent or obsolete before my work.+ API and SDK: Documented a new internal library for managing the database of Google Analytics configuration data. Contents included the database definition, API, and a user guide.+ Analysis: analyzed postmortems for outages of external Google services. Involved studying notes from retrospectives on service failures, interviewing engineers involved, and identifying elements common to outages in multiple domains. Show less

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  PayWithMyBank

  Jan 2013 - Jan 2013

  Senior Technical Writer, contract
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  Expert Support

  Jul 2013 - Sept 2014

  Senior Technical Writer, contract

  Documented an API for PayWithMyBank and redeveloped a guide to enable users to integrate commerce sites with with online payment software. Provided a document plan for their future documentation needs.

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  Apple

  Jul 2014 - Sept 2014

  Senior Technical Writer, Contract

  Added to the iTunes Connect Developer Guide and two smaller related documents. I wrote two new chapters and made changes throughout to reflect new features in the product and its complete UI overhaul. I interacted with technical content experts about the new features and UI. When that was not possible, I dug through UI mockups and WWDC presentations to write initial drafts of the material. My tasks included writing and correcting text, reorganizing material, and making screenshots of a UI that changed almost daily. Show less

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  Google

  Oct 2015 - Feb 2016

  Senior Technical Writer, contract

  Wrote documentation for API and SDK of the Android for Work App. This documentation is used by developers of Android apps porting their apps to earlier versions of the Android operating system. My tasks required reading source code in Java and interviewing international content experts at Google.

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  Google

  May 2017 - Sept 2017

  Senior Technical Writer, contract

  Technical editing for Google Cloud Solutions. Cloud Solutions Architects wrote documents and tutorials about the Google Cloud Platform, and I edited them to improve clarity, structure, and compliance with Google documentation style. I learned a lot about cloud infrastructure!

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  First On Compliance

  Apr 2018 - Apr 2019

  Emergency response actor

  I portray victims of disasters for emergency-response training exercises. Some of my most memorable roles are Terrified Woman With Broken Femur, Woman Trapped Under Chairs in the Dark, and Loud Voluble Whiner With Minor Scalp Wound.

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  Google

  Oct 2018 - Apr 2019

  Senior Technical Writer, contract

  Wrote how-to material for administrators who manage Chrome devices or Chrome Browser for a business or school. Wrote developer documentation for new Google Hangouts Chat API. Documented Chromebooks Grab-and-Go program.