Technical Author (multiple roles and seniority levels)

The role

A product-focused Technical Author is a member of a product engineering team, typically focused on a product or family of products. In this role you'll help the team develop documentation that serves the needs of the product's users. You will have responsibility for the quality of the user experience with the product, and will contribute towards the long-term success of the project itself.

A customer-focused Technical Author works in a team such as Field Engineering, Customer Success or Support, dealing with users of complex suites of Canonical software products, sometimes deployed in custom configurations. In this role you’ll take a responsive approach to software documentation problems and develop a strong understanding of how products work together and are used in the real world.

An operations-focused Technical Author is part of a business team, for example Legal, HR or Talent. An important part of this work is to maintain internal documentation, such as employee handbooks. In this role you will help develop and improve materials that hundreds of colleagues rely on daily, and define patterns of business communication for a rapidly-growing organisation.

Qualifications

• A strong candidate is an excellent collaborator and communicator
• Cares deeply about functional written communication
• Is a technical writer with a programmer’s mindset, or a programmer with a record of producing excellent documentation
• Has a record of community engagement, in open-source software, documentation, research or other disciplines
• Is sympathetic to the needs and challenges of open-source software and its communities
• Demonstrates technical curiosity, and is fascinated by software technology and its challenges
• Has demonstrable documentation skills, insight and enthusiasm
• Has experience of software development contexts
• Is familiar with: Linux, working on the command line, Git, Sphinx, reStructuredText
• Holds a BSc/BA degree or equivalent
• Is able to travel twice a year for up to two weeks for events

What we offer you

• Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person
• Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year
• Annual compensation review
• Recognition rewards
• Annual holiday leave
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues
• PrioritPass, and travel upgrades for long haul company events

About Canonical

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. As the company that publishes Ubuntu, one of the most important open source projects and the platform for AI, IoT and the cloud, we are changing the world of software. We recruit on a global basis and set a very high standard for people joining the company. We expect excellence - in order to succeed, we need to be the best at what we do. Most colleagues at Canonical have worked from home since its inception in 2004. Working here is a step into the future, and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game.

Canonical is an equal opportunity employer

We are proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and background create a better work environment and better products. Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.