About
Cate de Heer
Content + systems
At Salesforce, I had the vantage of a technical writer embedded in product teams. I used the insight I got from that central perspective to go beyond UX writing and documentation for my assigned teams, to building systems that would work for everybody.
The standards, tools, and workflows I developed have scaled across hundreds of teams developing Salesforce products, reducing rework while optimizing data and UIs for better products. They improve entire workflows by smoothing the touchpoints between engineering and other disciplines.
The combination of my experience on the ground with product teams and my background in linguistics and editorial production helps me make sound, scalable content decisions and work with teams to dissolve bottlenecks.
I hold a US patent on a system for organizing and managing user interface text.
In my spare time I like to draw fruit, grow native plants, and dance to live music. I am always asking people if I can pet their dogs.
“I had the pleasure of working with Cate on Education Cloud for Salesforce. She impressed me not only with what she produced but the process by which she produced it. She made linguistics and design principles the foundation of her work, resulting in productive discussions and outcomes based on data. Her organizational skills and mastery of process were another matter of note. Never did I feel more secure that the needs of my team were being met than when I was working with Cate.”
Matthew Blanski, Lead Member of Technical Staff at Salesforce
“I worked with Cate on a particularly complex project at Salesforce and found her to be an absolute joy to work with. Not only is she an extremely talented writer, able to find concise yet perfectly clear text for the most complex UI elements, she is also a very conscientious teammate who was able to manage constant change both in designs and in product/engineering requirements. Cate made a great copilot for me, identifying missed use cases and helping to identify when UI text was needed (or not). I particularly loved her openness to new ways of working; together we developed a system for delivering to engineering that reduced confusion and increased efficiency. Cate is a huge asset for any company or product team!”
Kathy Mirescu, UX Leader at Salesforce
Portfolio
See my work
Case studies and work samples across AI readiness, UX writing, and workflow design.
Work Together
Let’s talk about your project
Is your startup getting ready to scale up? Is your organization making more and more tradeoffs between velocity and the quality of your products?
I'm available for data modeling collaboration, UX writing, and problem solving for product teams.