Résumé

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Kythera Contreras

Summary

Documentation Czar | Arch Pedant

Experienced technical writer with an extensive background in quality assurance. Passionate about making complex information understandable by non-technical users. Skilled at building positive and engaging collaborative relationships across disciplines. Adept at multitasking and tracking work. Affinity for organizing chaos and herding cats.

Work Experience

Shell | Technical Writer
Houston, TX | January 2022–Present

Converted from contract consultant to Shell staff in January 2022. Continued my ongoing technical writer and Confluence/Jira administrator responsibilities, with the addition of product analyst functions for Confluence and Jira and became the primary focal for the Agile Hub with Shell’s Atlassian Enterprise team.

  • Primary responsibilities:
    • Ongoing technical writer responsibilities
    • Continuing Confluence and Jira administrator duties, including user management and license usage monitoring, user support, troubleshooting, creating new Confluence spaces and Jira projects for development teams
  • Additional responsibilities:
    • SharePoint technical site owner (TSO)
    • Focal between the Agile Hub and Shell’s Atlassian enterprise team to oversee account upkeep and subscription renewal and update stakeholders regarding subscription status
  • Milestones:
    • Coordinated migration from an independent Atlassian subscription to the company’s Enterprise subscription
    • Reduced Atlassian subscription cost by up to 50% by analyzing license usage trends and recommending a lower subscription tier
    • Wrote and presented a white paper to present findings on which content management platforms best (or fail to) meet the needs of software development teams
  • Community involvement:
    • SEA Shell (LGBTQIA+ employee resource group) member
    • Information & Digital Technology DE&I Communications Committee member (2024)

Shell (via X4 Staffing) | Technical Writer
Houston, TX | May 2019-January 2022

Contract consultant for the Shell Agile Hub. Initial responsibilities focused on writing, reviewing, and organizing documentation and doing a deep-dive on Docs-as-Code. I identified Confluence and Jira administration as part of my content management responsibilities and took on primary Confluence/Jira administrator duties. Because I was managing as well as writing content, I also took on functional site owner (FSO) responsibilities for the Agile Hub’s SharePoint site.

  • Primary responsibilities:
    • Documentation writing, review, and organization across multiple Agile Hub locations (Houston, London, Bangalore, Rotterdam)
    • Writing and reviewing documentation for different audiences (developers, support teams, stakeholders, and end users)
    • Updating and standardizing documentation formatting to improve overall clarity and quality
    • Confluence and Jira administrator
    • SharePoint functional site owner (FSO)
  • Milestones:
    • Solidified procedures to improve efficiency of documentation requests and increase confidence in the process
    • Updated and maintained a Confluence template to streamline and standardize information management across projects
    • Part of the team responsible for migrating the documentation repository from Google Drive to SharePoint

Welocalize | Linguistic Tester
Houston, TX | April 2019

Short-term role. Part of a data annotation team for reviewing and tagging transcripts for machine learning.

Six Foot | Acting Technical Writer (as “Technical Tester”)
Houston, TX | May 2017–January 2019

Hired as the technical writer for the quality assurance team. Primary responsibilities included writing and updating documentation for QA policies, procedures, and tools, as well as game-specific documentation.

  • Milestones:
    • Developed policies and best practices for creating and reviewing documentation
    • Standardized formatting for Confluence pages to increase clarity and consistency of information

Square Enix | Senior Quality Assurance (QA) Tester
El Segundo, CA | April 2006–May 2017

Part of the North America QA team, specialized for localization testing: proofreading, copy editing, and ensuring text adhered to company and project style guides, and followed the Chicago Manual of Style. Promoted to Senior QA Tester in May 2011.

  • Primary responsibilities:
    • Localization QA (proofreading, copy editing)
    • Bug tracking and regression testing
  • Additional responsibilities:
    • Evaluating tester application assessments
    • Training new contract testers and reviewing tester performance
    • Assistant QA Coordinator/ QA Coordinator on multiple projects
    • Interim QA Administrator on two occasions
  • Special assignments – documentation creation:
    • Contract tester handbook
    • Bug format quick reference guide

Education

University of California, Riverside – 2013-2014
Technical Writing Certificate

  • 3.94 GPA
  • Experience with MadCap Flare

Arizona State University – 1999-2003
BFA – Intermedia (Art)

  • Regent’s Academic Scholarship Recipient
  • President’s Scholarship Recipient
  • Dean’s List (seven semesters)
  • Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society Member
  • Cum laude graduate

Certifications

  • The Linux Foundation | Green Software for Practitioners (LFC131) | Issued November 2023 · Expires November 2024
  • ISTQB | Certified Tester, Foundation Level (CTFL) | Issued July 2017

Skills

  • Effective writing
  • Instruction writing
  • Editing and proofreading
  • Document Formatting
  • Documentation management
  • Style guide creation
  • Agile Methodology
  • Project Management
  • Interpersonal Skills
  • Continuous Improvement
  • Microsoft Office Suite

Hobbies

  • Gargoyles
  • Drawing & illustration
  • Video games
  • Tabletop RPGs
  • Building & painting models
  • 3D Printing
  • Travel
  • Society for Creative Anachronism
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