Observability - Senior Technical Writer (R5149)

At Elastic, we see endless possibility in a world of endless data. And we use the power of search to help people and organizations turn that possibility into results. Elastic is the leading platform for search-powered solutions. With solutions in Enterprise Search, Observability, and Security, we help improve customer and employee search experiences, keep critical applications running smoothly, and protect against cyber threats. Elastic enables organizations worldwide to use the power of Elastic, including Netflix, Uber, BBC, Microsoft, and thousands of others.

Elastic was built on a foundation of being free and open, which trickles down to how we work. We’re a distributed organization and have been from the beginning. Being distributed isn’t just a way of doing business—it’s a mentality that is at the core of our culture.

About Observability

The Observability team is in charge of developing solutions that focus on application developers and engineers that run infrastructure and services supporting these applications. Elasticsearch is an efficient datastore for logs, metrics, and application traces, supporting the three pillars of observability. The Observability team builds and maintains solutions that make getting insights from this data turnkey and efficient, such as our APM, Infrastructure Monitoring, Logs, and Uptime solutions. When developing these solutions, we think about the problem end-to-end: how do we automatically collect data from common data sources, how do we store it efficiently in Elasticsearch, how do we present this information to the user, what actions do we take on the insights from the data? All of these aspects are important in bringing a turnkey solution to the market.

The role

As a Senior Technical Writer on a growing docs team, you will play a crucial role in helping to develop new documentation, while improving existing content and ensuring effective user assistance across our products. We need someone who can form good working relationships with international colleagues across Observability and deliver the right content to our users when and where they need it most.

You’ll be an experienced technical writer, well used to working within demanding software development environments, and adept at absorbing and understanding technical concepts and procedures, identifying what the user needs to know and distilling this knowledge into concise, usable documentation that empowers them to get the most out of our products. Technically competent, you’re comfortable working with a variety of development and documentation tools and techniques — and perhaps bring a new trick or two to the team; we want to learn from you too!

The team is diverse and distributed across the world, and collaborates daily over GitHub, Zoom, and Slack. We’re looking for someone who is an excellent communicator, who enjoys and makes the most of these different mediums, while still having the organizational skills and discipline to excel within a wholly distributed team.

What you’ll do

• Write user documentation, edit developer drafts, and overhaul legacy content 
• Work closely with developers, product managers, support, and other colleagues to collect, plan, and publish great content to a global audience
• Join a small but talented docs team and take responsibility for supporting a specific development team with Observability
• Lead and contribute to important team projects focussed on improving overall documentation quality and processes
• Stand up for the user and champion the importance of good documentation and user-facing content internally and externally

What we’re looking for

• Impeccable writing and editing skills, and an open approach to peer reviews
• Technical interest and aptitude — you like learning new things and enjoy simplifying complexity
• Proven experience delivering quality documentation within a fast-paced software development environment
• Ability to work effectively using build scripts to publish Markdown or Asciidoctor content within GitHub workflows
• Passion and drive, with a strong desire to make things better for users
• A great attitude towards collaboration and teamwork — the best docs are produced by great teams

Bonus points

• Experience working on complex products or systems — any observability/monitoring or Elastic knowledge would be a double bonus
• Interest and/or experience helping to improve documentation workflows, tooling, and content
• Passion for contributing to open source projects or communities

Additional Information - We Take Care of Our People

As a distributed company, diversity drives our identity. Whether you’re looking to launch a new career or grow an existing one, Elastic is the type of company where you can balance great work with great life. Your age is only a number. It doesn’t matter if you’re just out of college or your children are; we need you for what you can do.

We strive to have parity of benefits across regions and while regulations differ from place to place, we believe taking care of our people is the right thing to do.

• Competitive pay based on the work you do here and not your previous salary
• Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
• Ability to craft your calendar with flexible locations and schedules for many roles
• Generous number of vacation days each year
• Double your charitable giving - We match donations 1:1 up to $1500 USD (or local currency equivalent)
• Up to 40 hours each year to use toward volunteer projects you love.
• Embracing parenthood with minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave

Different people approach problems differently. We need that. Elastic is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law, ordinance or regulation.

We welcome individuals with disabilities and strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all individuals. To request an accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email candidate_accessibility@elastic.co We will reply to your request within 24 business hours of submission.

Applicants have rights under Federal Employment Laws, view posters linked below:
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Poster; Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Poster; and Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) Poster.

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