About me

I am a Chicago-based data engineer and technical writer. I like swimming in Lake Michigan, making decadent lasagna, and playing the viola.

Data engineering

As a data engineer, I enjoy building ETL/ELT pipelines to transform messy data into cleaned and reshaped database tables and views that organizers, analysts, researchers, and journalists can query with confidence.

For data wrangling, I often use the PETL, polars, and Parsons Python libraries, as well as good old fashioned SQL in dbt models. I have a lot of experience using Civis Platform for pipeline orchestration, but lately I’ve been using Prefect Core, and sometimes even makefiles and cron jobs, depending on the needs of the project. I used Amazon Redshift extensively in my last job, MySQL in previous projects, and PostgreSQL and SQLite for my most recent data work.

I’m starting to dip my toe into data visualization with the Plotly Python library and Dash, and data publishing with Datasette, inspired by the Public Utility Data Liberation Project (PUDL).

For examples of my data engineering work, see my Chicago traffic crashes data project and the NLRB case data project I worked on with other participants of Recurse Center.

Technical writing

Product documentation

I have written extensive technical product documentation for npm and GitHub, and generally enjoy documenting developer tools for developer audiences. Thanks to my data engineering experience, I’m also enthusiastic about learning and documenting cloud technologies, particularly cloud databases. I prefer writing docs in Markdown, have experienced all the highs and lows of using Jekyll for docs (particularly the Liquid template language, and YAML for reusable content), and am a quick study with any static site generator.

Because I care deeply about accessibility, I add alt text to images, structure my docs with screen readers in mind, and keep my tone friendly, but free of idiomatic language that can be difficult to localize.

I like using pull or merge requests to draft and review docs, getting and giving feedback early and often, and continuously shipping doc updates to keep pace with the speed of modern software development. I have a history of initiating and completing ambitious, transformative projects, and like working with similarly-inclined people.

For examples of my product documentation work, see my documentation portfolio page.

Internal technical documentation

I like partnering with engineers and other technical experts to write docs that make their lives easier, and have written development environment setup docs, technical onboarding presentations, code style guides, troubleshooting procedures, incident response manuals, and other modern poetry in my capacity as a data engineer at The Movement Cooperative and an internal content developer at Oracle.

I like using GitHub wikis for internal docs, but am also proficient with Confluence, and am amenable to most any wiki software.

Contact

I like working with people and organizations committed to police and prison abolition, labor power, and environmental justice. If that sounds like you, reach out to me at everettn AT protonmail DOT com, or find me on LinkedIn or GitHub.