EDUCATION

• M.S. Software Engineering, Drexel University
• Graduate Certificate Human Computer Interaction and User Experience, Drexel University
• Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute
• Certified Usability Analyst (CUA), Human Factors International
• M.S. Library and Information Science, Drexel University
• B.S. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, George Washington University

CAREER HISTORY

Project Manager, Planetary
October 2024-Present
Environmental Tech, Climate Tech, Carbon Dioxide Removal

• Project Management: Plan, manage, execute carbon dioxide removal utilizing ocean alkalinity enhancement.
• Stakeholder Management: Build relationships with community members and site partners to ensure project success. Manage relationships with equipment and chemical supply partners.
• Budgeting: Administer budget of $250,000 and track carbon dioxide emissions for complete life cycle analysis.
• Business Development: Develop new opportunities to scale Planetary’s carbon dioxide removal efforts.
• Scheduling: Schedule large scale equipment deliveries, maintenance, and chemical delivery coordination. 
• Technical Writing: Develop SOPs for safe system operations and maximum system uptime.
• Personnel Management: Hire and manage both temporary and permanent project staff.
• Operations: Oversee site operations and personnel for 24/7 system operation, staff safety, and system efficiency.

Customer Experience Consultant, Elicit Research
March 2024-Present
SAAS, B2B, B2C, AI

• Product Consulting: Provide product consulting, project management, customer support, and documentation services to Elicit’s full-time team.
• Documentation Management and Knowledge Development: Spearheading the design and implementation of Elicit’s customer facing knowledge base.
• User Research: Establishing customer feedback and user research processes and pathways.
• Customer Support: Leading technical support and customer satisfaction program development.

Director of Product, Yellow Dog Software
March 2024-October 2024
SAAS, B2B, Inventory Management Software, Remote

• Product Management: Lead all product management functions for the core inventory software product, including the client interface, integrations, and software architecture development. Develop planning, execution, and release methodologies and guide standard software development practices.
• People Management: direct manager for the Quality Assurance Engineering team, providing performance oversight, coaching, hiring, and professional development guidance.
• Product Operations: Design and implement Agile practices, guiding transition from a waterfall environment.  Establish standardized collaborative and cross-functional communication pathways, implement Agile standup, sprint, and retrospective processes, and design knowledge management and sharing practices on a company-wide basis.
• Stakeholder Management: Act as the primary facilitator between C-level stakeholders, customers, third party partners, and individual contributors to ensure consistent communication and process transparency, increasing productivity and efficiency in software development and release practices.
• Modernization and Change Management: Consolidated, updated, and migrated the internal product wiki, software development practices, project management practices, and team collaboration practices from multiple disparate and overlapping systems into a single source of truth. Retrained employees company-wide on communication practices and project management expectations, resulting in a significant increase in clear cross-functional communication, the establishment of standardized process guidelines across 20+ recurring processes where none previously existed, and a noticeable increase in company morale.

Customer Experience Consultant, Elicit AI
March 2024-Present
SAAS, B2B, B2C, AI Research Assistant, Generative AI, Remote

• Product Consulting: Provide product consulting, project management, customer support, and documentation services to Elicit’s full-time team.
• Documentation Management and Knowledge Development: Spearheading the design and implementation of Elicit’s customer facing knowledge base.
• User Research: Establishing customer feedback and user research processes and pathways.
• Customer Support: Leading technical support and customer satisfaction program development.

Senior Product Support Analyst, Help Scout
April 2021-February 2024
SAAS, B2B, Customer Support Software, Remote

• Product Management: Defined and planned the short term and long term development and product launch OKRs and prioritized product roadmaps.
• UX Research: Conducted live and asynchronous user research, analyzed data, and defined requirements to determine desired customer outcomes.
• Usability Testing: Planned and executed User Acceptance Testing to improve product quality, resulting in 50+ bugs resolved prior to feature launches.
• Data Analysis: Applied data analysis techniques to bug triage, tracking, and management for increased bug resolution.
• Technical Writing: Developed technical documentation for knowledge bases for both internal and external use, improving the customer experience.
• Product Support: Provided technical product support to customers and internal team members, resulting in a 91% customer satisfaction rating.

Usability Program Manager, MeetEdgar.com
July 2019-March 2021
SAAS, B2B, Marketing & Social Media Management Software, Remote 

• Product Management: Planned, conducted, and reported on user research and testing initiatives to inform strategic product design and direction. Wrote acceptance criteria, designed manual tests, prioritized user feedback, and managed bug and story tracking and prioritization.
• Data Analysis: Overhauled product metrics utilizing Pareto Analysis resulting in a 20% reduction in backlog within 1 year.
• UX Research: Initiated a full redesign on the marketing website based on Inherent Value Testing with both long time customers and new leads for improved, researched based marketing of the product.
• UX Copywriting: Developed all in-app copy as the sole UX Copywriter.
• Technical Writing: Improved customer satisfaction by designing, writing, and maintaining the user-facing knowledge base.
• Customer Support: Provided chat and email support and troubleshooting for users with a 92% customer satisfaction rating.

Quality Assurance Lead, MeetEdgar.com
October 2014-July 2019
SAAS, B2B, Marketing & Social Media Management Software

• Technical Writing: Spearheaded a complete rewrite of user facing knowledge base, managing a team of 3 and completing the project in 6 weeks, resulting in increased utilization and fewer requests for support.
• Software Quality Assurance: Defined the Quality Assurance strategy, values, and procedures.
• Product Management: writing acceptance criteria, design reviews, manual testing, bug reporting, and user feedback prioritization.
• UX Research: Conducted live product demos and user training, gathering feedback from participants.
• Customer Support: Provided chat and email support and troubleshooting for users with a 92% customer satisfaction rating.
  

Freelancer
Self Employed 2011 – 2015, Remote

• Provided copywriting, technical writing, social media management, HTML, CSS, customer support, and other services to small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Pilot, United States Air Force
Jan 2006-June 2008

• Piloted T-37 and T-38 aircraft and simulators, including instrument-only, cross country, formation, low-level, and solo flights.
• Completed rigorous academic and practical tests, check rides, and evaluations, demonstrating safe and effective decision making, in accordance with FAA and Air Force regulations.
• Designed and delivered briefings and presentations on weather, training missions, safety procedures, and emergency procedures.
• Planned and executed more than 100 training missions.
• Wrote monthly newsletter for the 80th Operations Support Squadron.
• Honorably Discharged

REFERNCES

Please email me at sarah@sarahvanpelt.com, and I will be happy to provide you with references!