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.
PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY
Work Experience
Building observability infrastructure with Terraform, Kubernetes, and Datadog. Shipped first production AI agent (Key Census Bot) for certificate review automation - first production AI agent deployment on the team.
Redesigned ETL processes using Databricks and PySpark, achieving 54% reduction in processing time. Built SQL-driven sanctions screening product that generated $1.2M in first-year revenue. Engineered LLM-powered citation system using LangChain and GPT-4, improving citation accuracy by 92%.
Mentored high school students on AI/ML research projects, including healthcare chatbots, educational tutoring systems, and custom ML models. Designed personalized curricula and guided students through end-to-end development.
Analyzed voice data for trans vocal training application in startup-like lab environment. Performed student diversity analytics for institutional research.
Software engineering intern building internal tools for trading systems. Worked on real-time data pipelines at enterprise scale.
Software development intern working on customer-facing banking applications. Collaborated with cross-functional teams on feature development.
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
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: Ask the Oracle — LLM-powered natural language anime database query tool with ReAct SQL agent (PostgreSQL, LangChain, Streamlit). Presented 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
Ask the Oracle: LLM-powered anime database
ReAct SQL agents + PostgreSQL + Streamlit
Presented at Anime Boston 2026
flip back ↩
Technical Skills
Data & Analysis
Infrastructure
AI & Automation
Research
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.
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.