About
Kimberly Garmoe
Messy in, usable out.
I'm interested in a deceptively difficult problem: how do we turn messy technical information into knowledge that people and AI systems can actually use?
I spent much of my career doing this for humans. At AWS and Chef, I worked inside complex infrastructure environments, including cryptography, identity, security, infrastructure automation, APIs, and developer tooling, figuring out how systems actually worked and turning that understanding into usable technical knowledge.
Now I'm applying the same problem-solving approach to AI systems: knowledge representation, retrieval and RAG, knowledge graphs, ontology, evaluation, and agentic workflows.
My recent work includes building data pipelines in Spark and Databricks; experimenting with small local LLMs and retrieval systems; and developing projects around extracting structured knowledge from software and enterprise information environments. I'm particularly interested in the layer between raw information and an AI application: how knowledge is derived, represented, retrieved, evaluated, and kept trustworthy enough to use.
I bring an unusual combination of technical writing, library science, software and information work, and years of experience collaborating directly with engineers on difficult systems. I'm increasingly interested in customer-facing technical roles where I can understand a customer's environment, identify the real problem, and help them make complex technology work in practice. I like the space between product, engineering, and the people actually trying to use what we build.
Experience
October 2022 – January 2026
Seattle, WA
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Senior Technical Writer
- Documented cryptographic and identity infrastructure used in regulated and high-assurance environments, with a focus on key management, signing, encryption, and trust boundaries.
- Began in the Protocols, Libraries & Algorithms group, documenting cryptographic libraries, Cryptographic Computing, and FIPS-related material.
- Later covered AWS Secrets Manager, Key Management Service, Payment Cryptography, CloudHSM, Certificate Manager, and Private Certificate Authority.
- Led taxonomy and information architecture work for cryptography and technical content teams, designing durable structures for complex, evolving systems.
- Built AI-assisted editing tools to enforce clarity, correctness, and consistency at scale.
April 2022 – July 2022
United States
Tecton
Senior Technical Writer
- Individual contributor for machine learning feature store documentation.
- Collaborated with UX to create short, readable UI content.
- Improved documentation design, architecture, and delivery.
December 2016 – March 2022
Seattle, WA
Chef Software
Manager, Technical Writing → Sr. Technical Writer
- Led the consolidation of product documentation from several microsites into a single website while maintaining source files in separate GitHub repositories.
- Managed a global team in a rapidly changing environment.
- The consolidated site featured federated search and automation for reference material, ensuring content stayed current, correct, and complete.
May 2015 – February 2016
Seattle, WA
The Seattle Public Library
Reference Librarian
- Identified and interpreted user needs; provided reference, readers' advisory, computer, database, and referral services.
1998 – 2010
Los Angeles, CA
UCLA
Collections Development Assistant & Instructor
- Applied subject matter expertise and analysis of metadata and circulation data to large-scale purchasing decisions at a research-one academic library.
- Developed and taught courses in history and the humanities, including From Gutenberg to Google: Media Revolutions in Comparative Perspectives.
- Conducted research, grant writing, and translation work in English, German, and Dutch.
Education
2012–2014
University of British Columbia
MLIS — Library & Information Science
University of California, Los Angeles
MA, CPhil (ABD) — European History
Coding Dojo
Full Stack Developer
Seattle University
BA — History
Skills & Languages
Technical
Languages
English (native) · German (professional working) · Dutch (reading)
Certifications
- Advanced Programming in Python
- Professional Librarian's Life Certificate
- Certificate in Python Programming