yellowpigs.net

Sara Smollett
sara@simons-rock.edu

tl;dr: Google SRE, Wikimedia, WHOI, Simon's Rock, Ada Initiative, HCSSiM, engineering manager, reliability, systems design, high-availability, fault tolerance, scalability, monitoring, disaster recovery, efficiency, release management, toil reduction, security, privacy, AI ethics, accessibility, Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, Python, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, BIND, DHCPd, NetReg, OpenLDAP, Postfix, Puppet, Cisco & Linux routing, GCP App Engine, Spanner, math, linguistics, natural language processing, philosophy

Site Reliability Engineer, Systems Engineer - Manager II

Experienced admin of services running on distributed systems (Google's internal equivalents of Kubernetes, Cassandra, etc.)
5+ years engineering manager
15+ years Google Site Reliability Engineer
25+ years Linux admin (Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, RedHat/Fedora, and many other distributions); OpenBSD and Solaris admin
In-depth experience with Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, OpenLDAP, BIND, DHCPd, Squid, Postfix, Nessus, and other common unix services
Current preferred programming language: Python
Other languages I may or may not remember: C, Golang, Bash, Perl, JavaScript, PHP, Java, Ruby, Scheme/Racket, SML

Employment history:

Google, Inc., Mountain View, CA (Sep 2012 - Jun 2023):

Site Reliability Engineer (SRE Manager II), Core Infrastructure -- People & Sharing (Oct 2019 - Jun 2023)
Diversity & Inclusion projects (Aug 2018 - Sep 2019)
Site Reliability Engineer (Senior SRE -> SRE Manager II), Technical Infrastructure and Cloud -- Spanner (Aug 2016 - Apr 2018)
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE III -> Senior SRE Tech Lead/Manager), Google Apps -- Calendar and Sites (Dec 2013 - Jul 2016)
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE III), Security (Sep 2012 - Nov 2013)

Managed 12 engineers across multiple sites/continents; coached team members for personal and career growth; acted as technical lead
Drafted annual roadmaps and headcount plans; identified, prioritized, and assigned quarterly project work
Created a new team; merged two existing teams; assessed team turndowns
Coordinated between teams in multiple timezones/continents (US, Europe, and Australia)
Performed regular oncall duties for critical high-availability services (e.g., Google Calendar); drove pager-load and toil reduction efforts
Significantly improved resource utilization and usage, lowering service costs; performed capacity planning
Led production readiness reviews to onboard services; performed design and launch reviews for new services
Streamlined release processes and simplified service architecture, reducing toil
Created and tuned in-depth monitoring alerts and dashboards
Consulted with engineering teams re-archictecting major services (e.g., GMail) on Spanner

Served as a member of the core disaster recovery testing (DiRT) team
Co-authored a chapter of The Site Reliability Workbook (Chapter 8: On-Call)
Defensive publication for automatic event scheduling based on weather conditions
Participated in hiring committees, chaired a staffing allocations group, created interviewer training materials, and recruited at conferences (LISA, SREcon) and on-site events
Mentored new and continuing engineers and managers
Coordinated an internal cross-team exchange program to facilitate knowledge-sharing
Advocated for clear ethical guidelines and transparency; helped draft AI Principles, policy, and related comms; mediated between concerned engineers and executives

The Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco, CA (Dec 2011 - Sep 2012):

Operations Engineer (part-time contractor)

Used puppet to automate deployment of monitoring infrastructure for Wikipedia
Worked on development/testing "labs" OpenStack environment
Attended Wikimania 2012
Led Wikipedia editathons (volunteer)
Intermittent Wikipedia editor since 2004 (volunteer)

Google, Inc., Mountain View, CA (Oct 2005 - Aug 2011):

Site Reliability Engineer (SRE III), Security (Sep 2010 - Aug 2011)
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE III), Google Apps -- Accounts, Apps for Your Domain, Reader (Dec 2008 - Sep 2010)
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE II -> SRE III), Corporate -- HR/Recruiting, Engineering, and Financial Systems (Apr 2007 - Nov 2008)
Systems Administrator II, Sysops -> Corporate Reliability Engineer II (Oct 2005 - Mar 2007)

Tech led team of 6-10 globally distributed engineers
Primary SRE for the launches of new services (internal and external); performed regular launch reviews
Responsible for reliability of high-availability and high-QPS web frontend and RPC services backed by BigTable
Established multi-homing of services, devised and certified disaster recovery procedures, and performed disaster recovery and training drills
Peformed capacity planning, loadtesting, resource management, and utilization improvements of production services
Developed extensive custom monitoring rules to ensure availability and performance; performed frequent oncall; responded to critical reliability and security incidents; created oncall and incident response playbooks
Administered networking devices and tools, including load balancers and a custom intrusion detection pipeline
Set up and administered MySQL and PostgeSQL servers with multi-tier replication topologies
Automated server deployments, using many custom tools, as well as with puppet and Debian package management
Mentored new hires
Interviewed candidates; recruited at conferences

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA (Nov 2003 - Sep 2005):

Information Systems Associate II, CIS Networking

Installed and maintained DNS, DHCP, NTP, LDAP, Apache, and MySQL servers on Debian GNU/Linux
Deployed, modified, and maintained a network host inventory and registration system based on CMU NetReg
Wrote Perl/MySQL-based web app to assist in network migration
Migrated people/account information from Netscape LDAP to OpenLDAP (using eduPerson and custom schemas)
Documented network registration system and instructed helpdesk on network troubleshooting
Assisted with deployment of VoIP (Asterisk/SIP) services
Some experience with mathematical software packages (MATLAB, Maple, Mathematica)

Simon's Rock College of Bard, Great Barrington, MA (May 2000 - Oct 2003):

Lead Systems and Network Administrator, Computer & Media Services

Installed and maintained production Debian GNU/Linux servers with ~1000 user accounts and numerous services including Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, OpenLDAP, Postfix, Courier, Mailman, BIND, DHCPd, Squid, and Samba
Shared responsbility for Mac OS X, Windows 2000, Solaris, and AIX servers
Wrote Perl and bash scripts to automate systems and network administration tasks (account management, log parsing, backups, service monitoring, etc.)
Configured Cisco and Linux routers and firewalls (iptables, ipchains)
Experience with bandwidth monitoring and traffic shaping tools (iptraf, ntop, mrtg, libpcap)
Performed vulnerability scanning, security monitoring, and incident response (Nessus, Snort, Argus)
Implemented spam and virus filtering (Postfix, SpamAssassin, Procmail, ClamAV, DNSBLs)
Developed and implemented server procedures, policies, and user documentation
Created and maintained websites (HTML, CSS, Perl, PHP, Python, PostgreSQL)
Built, upgraded, and repaired PC and Mac servers, workstations, and laptops
Trained junior systems administrators and oversaw student workers
Taught an undergraduate course on Linux and systems administration

Undergraduate experience:

Assistant Systems Administrator, Simon's Rock College of Bard, MA (Dec 1999 - May 2000):
Performed routine systems administration tasks
Networking Intern, MedIT and CIS, Stanford University, CA (Jun 1999 - Nov 1999):
Installed and maintained network switches (3Com, Asante, ATI, Cisco, Extreme, HP)
Provided Mac and Windows desktop, Apple hardware, and networking support
Performed routine systems administration tasks (Linux, Solaris)
Computer and Networking Assistant, Simon's Rock College of Bard, MA (Aug 1998 - May 1999):
Provided Mac and Windows technical support to students, faculty, and staff
Oversaw computer labs
Maintained physical network and provided network troubleshooting
Network Installer, Simon's Rock College of Bard, MA (Feb 1998 - Aug 1998):
Designed and installed college LAN (ST/SC fiber and Cat5 Ethernet, hubs, switches)

Diversity & inclusion:

Google company-wide and chapter ERG co-lead (2017-2023)
Co-initiated Google's Bias Busting workshop (external version) based on the Ada Initiative's Ally Skills workshop
Created and ran disability awareness & allyship courses (external version) and co-created an online disability training for managers (external version)
Created disability website and numerous resources about working with and managing people with disabilities; led global Accessibility Week events; advised on navigating the accommodations and leave processes
Authored guidelines for hosting inclusive offsites
The Ada Initiative advisor to the board (2013 - 2015); co-authored the AdaCamp toolkit; coordinated opening reception of AdaCamp 2013 and participated in AdaCamp 2012-2014
Speaker and panelist at multiple Google events, OUTC (2015), Grace Hopper (2012)
Black Girls Code volunteer (2012 - 2014)
Reviewed and drafted job descriptions to promote inclusion and encourage diversity
Raised awareness about gender inclusion issues within Google
Co-founded Google Women SRE/Operations group (2007)

Academic:

San Jose State University (San Jose, California):
computational linguistics (May 2012)
Tufts University (Medford, Massachusetts):
M.A. in Philosophy, concentrating in philosophy of science (May 2005)
Cumulative GPA 3.5
Simon's Rock College of Bard (Great Barrington, Massachusetts):
B.A. in Liberal Arts with concentrations in Mathematics & Computer Science, magna cum laude (May 2000)
Cumulative GPA 3.5, highest honors on thesis
Hampshire College (Amherst, Massachusetts):
HCSSiM - Summer Studies in Mathematics (Summer 1994, Summer 1995, YPMD board member 2023+)
Antilles School (St Thomas, US Virgin Islands):
National Merit Scholar
MathCounts Nationals competitor
More detailed academic resume

References:

References available upon request
LinkedIn

Note: I am currently only interested in remote contract work or flexible part-time work.

Last updated 2024