# Octavia Payne

> Software Engineer at Tarro

Location: Oakland, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/octavia

I'm a writer-turned-engineer looking to use my communications experience to build beautiful, intuitive UIs. I love turning turning complex, technical ideas into intuitive and accessible products.

I previously led communications at an environmental think tank — engaging journalists, governments, and civil society organizations around research on deforestation and land use trends around the world to inform more sustainable policies and practices.

## Work Experience
### Software Engineer @ Tarro
Jan 2023 – Present

### Software Engineer @ Solv.
Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 | Oakland, California, United States

### Senior Frontend Engineer @ Boon AI
Jan 2020 – Jan 2021
Developing UI and collaborating on designs for a rich ML/AI visual search platform using JavaScript, React, Hooks, Next.js, SWR, Emotion, Jest, and Cypress in a 100% unit-test covered codebase.
• Implemented a React hook to synchronize scrolling events across multiple components, providing the foundational mechanism for custom interactive ML analysis timeline, scrollbar and mini-map features.
• Built an interactive ML analysis timeline with zooming, resizing, and multi-axis scrolling capabilities.

### Frontend Engineer @ Boon AI
Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area
• Liaised with clients to collect user feedback and deliver on feature requirements.
• Developed code review principles to systematically mitigate technical debt and improve sprint velocities.

### Communications Manager, Global Forest Watch @ World Resources Institute
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Led a communications team for Global Forest Watch (GFW), a multi-million dollar forest monitoring initiative powered by an open-source platform for interactive, visualized land and forest change data.

### Communications Coordinator, Global Forest Watch @ World Resources Institute
Jan 2015 – Jan 2017 | Washington, District of Columbia, United States
• Produced 300+ posts for the GFW blog, increasing monthly readership from 200 to 3,800+
• Executed messaging and media outreach strategies in coordination with teams in Brazil, Indonesia and the U.S. 
• Established media presence with 1,600+ hits annually, including coverage in top-tier outlets such as The Associated Press, The Guardian, Nature, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Washington Post

### Account Executive @ Edelman
Jan 2012 – Jan 2015 | Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Delivered content and executed outreach strategies for multi-million dollar issues-advocacy campaigns.
• Wrote op-eds, letters-to-the-editor, newsletters, and press releases and designed content for multi-million dollar advocacy campaigns on issues ranging from STEM education to renewable fuel legislation
• Coordinated events, including constituent fly-ins, panel discussions, press calls, roundtables, and workshops
• Produced research for and helped develop new business proposals

### Intern @ Edelman
Jan 2011 – Jan 2012 | Washington D.C. Metro Area

### Garden Supervisor @ Urban Nutrition Initiative
Jan 2011 – Jan 2011 | Greater Philadelphia Area

### Volunteer @ Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger
Jan 2011 – Jan 2011


## Education
### Software Engineering
Hackbright Academy

### Data science
General Assembly

### Bachelor of Arts - BA in Anthropology
University of Pennsylvania


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/octaviaaris
- Website: https://github.com/octaviaaris

---
Source: https://flows.cv/octavia
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/octavia/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-01