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, 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
• 20+ 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 concerened 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
Maintained security services including a custom intrusion detection pipeline
• 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 (Perl, Apache2, MySQL 4, BIND 9, DHCPd 3, Squid, Nessus, CiscoWorks)
• 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, 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, 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, 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, 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 based on the Ada Initiative's Ally Skills workshop
• Created, launched, and scaled disability awareness and allyship course (external version)
• Co-created disability training for managers
• Created guidelines for hosting inclusive offsites
• 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
• The Ada Initiative advisor to the board (2013 - 2015); co-authored the AdaCamp toolkit; coordinated opening reception of AdaCamp 2013 and attended AdaCap 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 in Operations group (2007)

Academic:

• San Jose State University (San Jose, California):
  Certificate in 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 and 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