yellowpigs.net

Sara Smollett
sara@simons-rock.edu

tl;dr: Google SRE, manager, Mountain View, systems design, high-availability, fault tolerance, scalability, monitoring, disaster recovery, resource utilization, release automation, toil reduction, security, intrusion detection, privacy, AI ethics, accessibility, Linux, Debian, Python, App Engine, Spanner, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, BIND, DHCPd, NetReg, OpenLDAP, Postfix, Puppet, Cisco & Linux routing, computational linguistics, NLP, NLTK, Ada Initiative, philosophy, math

Site Reliability Engineer, Systems Engineer - Manager II

• Experienced admin of services running on distributed systems (Google's internal equivalents of Kubernetes, Cassandra, etc.)
• 10+ year Google Site Reliability Engineer
• 20+ year Linux admin (Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, RedHat, and many other distributions), OpenBSD admin
• In-depth experience with Apache, MySQL, BIND, DHCPd, OpenLDAP, Postfix, and many other services
• Current preferred programming language: Python
• Languages I probably still remember: Bash, JavaScript, Perl
• Other past languages: C, Go, Java, PHP, Ruby, Scheme/Racket, SML

Employment history:

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

• Site Reliability Engineer (SRE Manager II), Core Infrastructure (Oct 2019 - present)
• 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 9 engineers, tech led/managed 6 engineers, coached team members for personal and career growth
• Drafted roadmap and headcount plans, assigned quarterly work based on prioritization and individual needs
• Created a new team, outlined a plan for converging two existing teams
• Coordinated between teams in multiple timezones/continents (US, Europe, and Australia)
• Performed frequent oncall duties for critical high-availability services (e.g., Google Calendar), drove pager-load and toil reduction
• Significantly improved resource utilization, lowering service costs, and performed capacity planning
• Led production readiness reviews
• Streamlined release processes and simplified service architecture, reducing toil
• Maintained intrusion detection pipeline and other security services

• Co-authored a chapter of The Site Reliability Workbook (Chapter 8: On-Call)
• Defensive publication for automatic event scheduling based on weather conditions
• Served as a member of the core disaster recovery testing (DiRT) team
• Served as member of hiring committee, chaired staffing allocations group, revised interviewer training, recruited at conferences (LISA, SREcon) and on-site events
• Mentored new managers
• Coordinated internal exchange program
• Advised on policy

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 distributed engineers
• Primary SRE for the launches of two new services (one internal, one external), and performed launch reviews for numerous new releases
• Administered high-availability and high-QPS web frontend and RPC services backed by custom storage layers (e.g., 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 duties for critical high-availability services, and led related documentation efforts
• Administered networking devices and tools, including load balancers and IDSes
• Set up and administered MySQL and PostgeSQL servers with a multi-tier replication topology
• Automated server deployments, using many custom tools, as well as 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 VoIP (Asterisk/SIP) deployment
• 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 and inclusion:

• Google ERG co-lead (2017 - )
• Created and launched Disability awareness and allyship courses (2018 - )
• Led Accessibility Week events (2017 - )
• Created resources about working with and managing people with disabilities (2016 - )
• Advisor to The Ada Initiative (2013 - 2015), sponsor (2011 - 2015)
• Co-author of AdaCamp toolkit (2015)
• Attended AdaCamp (2012 - 2014), coordinated opening reception (2013)
• Co-initiated Google's Bias Busting workshop based on the Ada Initiative's Ally Skills workshop (2013 - 2014)
• Created guidelines for hosting inclusive offsites (2014)
• Black Girls Code volunteer (2012 - 2014)
• Diversity & inclusion speaker and panelist at Google events (2013 - )
• Panelist on SRE session at Grace Hopper (2012)
• Reviewed and drafted job descriptions to encourage diversity (2011)
• Raised awareness about gender inclusion issues within Google (2008 -)
• 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)
• Antilles School (St Thomas, US Virgin Islands):
  National Merit Scholar
  MathCounts Nationals competitor
• More detailed academic resume

References:

• References available upon request
• LinkedIn

Last updated 2020