ABOUT
Full background, experience, and story
Sara Kay is a Site Reliability Engineer II at IBM (HashiCorp unit), focused on data systems and infrastructure reliability. She conducts research, presents at academic conferences, and specializes in making data systems resilient. Beyond her technical work, she creates custom fabricated products for charity events, mentors students in data and programming, and contributes to communities through volunteer work. Her work spans infrastructure engineering, academic research, maker culture, and community service.
people say you wear many hats. here are the ones i wear, at work and in life.
pick a hat from the shelf →
then click it on the stack to learn more
then click it on the stack to learn more
currently wearing
pick some hats →
at work
outside work
every engineer’s laptop is secretly a resume. here’s mine — each sticker is a chapter, click one to read it.
click a sticker to read that chapter ✦
(they go roughly in order, but nobody’s life is actually in order)
PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY
Work Experience
Contributed to Keysensus — a context-aware data-governance capability — and built and own the production service that automates governance decisions across distributed pipelines, the control layer that determines what data is safe for downstream AI and analytics systems to use. Developed ML-based sensitive-data classification with AWS Bedrock, including LLM evaluation and prompt engineering for production. Pipeline automation eliminates 10 hours of manual review per week while supporting audit compliance. Also supports observability and reliability for HashiCorp Cloud Platform with Terraform and Kubernetes.
On the Banking GenAI team, built credit-memo generation with OpenAI and LangChain over Grid and Orbis data, saving analysts 8+ hours per report. Engineered LLM-powered document chunking and citation system using LangChain and GPT-4 Turbo, improving RAG citation accuracy by 92% and making AI-assisted research trustworthy for financial analysts. Built sanctions screening product that generated $1.2M in first-year revenue with a 99.7% EU privacy compliance rate — secure, compliant AI tooling for finance. Modernized high-throughput data pipelines with Databricks and PySpark, cutting processing time 54%.
Project-based applied-AI teaching: mentored high school students through building and shipping real AI/ML systems — healthcare chatbots, educational tutoring systems, custom ML models — not toy exercises. Designed personalized curricula with milestones and publishable-work targets, guiding students through end-to-end development and deployment.
Analyzed voice data for trans vocal training application in startup-like lab environment. Performed student diversity analytics for institutional research.
Teaching assistant for five courses including Machine Learning (CS 74), Accelerated Computational Linguistics (CS 72), Modern Statistical Computing (QSS 20), Data Structures (CS 10), and Introduction to Computer Science (CS 1). Created a Data Mining workshop to support student final projects, led weekly review sessions, held office hours, and graded exams and labs — hands-on, project-based teaching across the applied ML and NLP curriculum.
Built an employee-facing application used by 50,000+ employees on the Staff Services Technology team. Developed Python APIs managing employee data in MongoDB, verified with unit testing in an Agile framework.
Supported client acquisition with advanced search analytics via LinkedIn Sales Navigator, contributing to $3.5MM in net new money and four new households. Educated wealth-management clients on cybersecurity, multi-factor authentication, and phishing.
Education
Dartmouth College
BA Computer Science + Quantitative Social Science
Graduated with Honors
Academic Citation of Merit
TuckLAB Finalist
First-Year Emerging Leader
graduated with honors and a very specific brain
AI/ML Foundation
Computer Science core curriculum with focus on data systems and quantitative analysis. Applied machine learning and data science methodologies through research projects.
Research: Voice data analysis for trans vocal training (DALI Lab) • Student diversity analytics
Senior Thesis in Computer Science (2022): completed with the Minds, Machines, and Society Group under Prof. Soroush Vosoughi, whose lab studies LLM interpretability and alignment.
on the lab roster ↗
flip me ↩
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE — TRANSCRIPT
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Data Structures & Algorithms
Machine Learning
Database Systems
Software Engineering
Computer Architecture
Operating Systems
QUANTITATIVE SOCIAL SCIENCE
Statistical Methods
Research Design
Survey Methodology
Data Analysis
Behavioral Science
RESEARCH
DALI Lab: Voice data analysis for trans vocal training
Senior Thesis: GPT-3 text generation analysis
Student diversity analytics
flip back ↩
Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper School)
MS Business Analytics, May 2026
University Honors
graduated with university honors (top QPA!)
AI/ML Specialization
Statistical Foundations • Data Analytics in Finance • Modern Data Management • Data Visualization •
Ethics and AI
• Supply Chain Analytics • Optimization
Capstone: Anime Analyst — LLM-powered natural language anime/manga database query tool with ReAct SQL agent (PostgreSQL, LangChain, Streamlit). Demoed live at Anime Boston 2026.
flip me ↩
CARNEGIE MELLON (TEPPER) — TRANSCRIPT
CORE BUSINESS ANALYTICS
Statistical Foundations of Business Analytics
Modern Data Management
Data Visualization
Optimization
AI & SPECIALIZED TOPICS
Ethics and AI ⭐
Data Analytics in Finance
Supply Chain Analytics
CAPSTONE PROJECT
Anime Analyst: LLM-powered anime database
ReAct SQL agents + PostgreSQL + Streamlit
Presented at Anime Boston 2026
flip back ↩
Key Achievements ✦ ✦
Featured Speaker
Presented live demo of natural language-to-SQL anime database system at Anime Boston 2026 to conference audience.
↗ talks
Academic Excellence
Graduated with honors from both Dartmouth College (BA) and Carnegie Mellon University (MS Business Analytics).
↗ about
Published Researcher
Seven peer-reviewed publications including features in the Journal of Financial Planning and the Journal of Family Theory and Review, plus Applied Finance Letters, NCFR Report, and other academic journals.
↗ press & research
AWS Certified
Earned AWS Certified Data Engineer and AWS Cloud Practitioner certifications.
↗ about
Revenue Impact
Developed zero-to-one compliance product generating $1.2M in revenue.
↗ work
Performance Optimization
Reduced ETL processing time by 54% through pipeline optimization.
↗ work
Maker & Fabrication
Handmade charity merchandise for Games Done Quick and Prevent Cancer Foundation.
↗ maker
Conference Speaker
Presented at AAFCS, BSPA (Harvard Kennedy School), Anime Boston, MAPOR, and other conferences.
↗ talks
NL-to-SQL System
Built natural language-to-SQL query system over a 162k-entry anime database (60,000+ titles) as graduate capstone project.
↗ projects
RAG Pipeline Improvement
Improved RAG citation accuracy by 92% using LangChain implementation.
↗ projects
Technical Writer
Launched Data Gremlin Go Brr newsletter covering data engineering and AI tooling.
↗ writing
Technical Skills
Data & Analysis
Infrastructure
AI & Machine Learning
Programming
Making
EXPERIENCE ✦
Organizations I've worked with, learned from, and contributed to.
IBM
HashiCorp
SRE II
Carnegie Mellon
Tepper School of Business
MSBA '26
Dartmouth
College
BA CS + QSS
Punahou
School
Honolulu, HI
Bank of America
Data Engineering
PNC
Technology Intern
Moody's
Analytics
Data Engineer
Johns Hopkins
Center for Talented Youth
Instructor
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
Board of Directors
AWS Certified: Data Engineer · Cloud Practitioner
COMMUNITY IMPACT & RECOGNITION
Volunteering Highlights
Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia Editor
Feb 2026 - Present
Contributing and maintaining Wikipedia articles, with focus on underrepresented community figures and technical documentation.
Hawaii Public Health Institute
Tobacco Advocacy Leader
2015 - 2018
Led statewide advocacy campaigns resulting in legislation restricting flavored tobacco sales. Named 2018 National Youth Advocate of the Year by Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Notable Achievements
2018
National Youth Advocate of the Year
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
Recognized for leading statewide advocacy campaigns and successfully passing legislation restricting flavored tobacco sales in Hawaii.
2024
1st Place - Moody's MATR Hackathon
Moody's Analytics
Placed 1st (2024) and 3rd (2025) in Moody's on-site MATR hackathons.
2019
3rd Place - Servco Hackathon
Servco Pacific Inc.
Developed innovative automotive service solution during 24-hour hackathon competition.
Press & Media Highlight
2026
Student Feature: Part-Time MSBA Program
Carnegie Mellon University - Tepper School of Business
Featured in Tepper School spotlight discussing navigating the job market with AI, building a personal brand after layoff, and integrating spontaneous side projects into academic research and conference presentations.
OFF THE RESUME
Family milestones that mattered more than any of mine in 2025.
Dec 24, 2025
My mom became a U.S. citizen
After more than twenty years of paperwork, embassies, and patience: the oath ceremony.
Read the full post ↗
May 29, 2025
My mom walked at her PhD graduation
On relentless pursuit, on advice she's given me, and on watching her finally cross the stage.
Read the full post ↗
Apr 30, 2026
The Time My Mom and I Ambushed Tim Cook
Ten years ago at Apple's Infinite Loop Campus. Pulled the photo out of the archive the week Cook announced he was stepping down.
Read the full post ↗