Documentation - Technical Writer I

Elastic is an open source search company that powers enterprise search, observability, and security solutions built on one technology stack that can be deployed anywhere. From finding documents to monitoring infrastructure to hunting for threats, Elastic makes data usable in real time and at scale. Thousands of organizations worldwide, including Barclays, Cisco, eBay, Fairfax, ING, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, The Mayo Clinic, NASA, The New York Times, Wikipedia, and Verizon, use Elastic to power mission-critical systems. Founded in 2012, Elastic is a distributed company with Elasticians around the globe. Learn more at elastic.co

We are seeking a hard-working, technically savvy writer who can guide our users on how to install, configure, and administer the Elastic Stack — whether on-premise or using Elastic Cloud. You’ll be working on docs for some of Elastic’s flagship products, including Elasticsearch and Kibana.

Does this sound like the job for you? Check out our docs, install and tinker with the products that interest you, and think about where you might fit in. Then, show us your writing chops. Tell us why you're interested and what you can bring to the role. Upload relevant writing samples, or provide links to your portfolio, GitHub contributions, or other publicly available content with your application.

What You’ll Do:

• Work side-by-side with Elastic engineers, product marketing, support, and your fellow writers to document new features, improve our existing content, and help users succeed with the entire stack
• Produce how-tos, tutorials, user guides, and other aids for our knowledge base
• Follow Elastic's Git-based software development process. Being comfortable using Git and GitHub is essential.
• Review and edit documentation changes contributed by other Elastic employees and community members
• Identify problem areas or structural deficiencies and proactively contribute to their improvement
• Test both the product and its documentation for accuracy and consistency
• Collaborate with other content creators at Elastic from Engineering, Marketing, Design, Support, and beyond to help tell a consistent Elastic story

What You Bring:

• 5+ years in a SaaS, IT, or developer-focused environment that included writing customer-facing documentation for products. You understand the craft of technical writing and how it differs from other types of writing.
• A proactive and forward-thinking attitude to resolving problems and delivering results
• Keen attention to detail, sentence structure, and grammar
• Ability to learn new concepts quickly
• Comfortable reading code in one or more languages
• Ability to thrive, without much oversight, in a fast-paced, constantly evolving environment
• Experience in prioritizing and understanding the lifecycle of documentation from pre-release through ongoing maintenance
• Experience authoring content in a lightweight markup language such as Markdown, Asciidoc, or Wikitext
• Working knowledge of Git and GitHub.
• Familiar with basic image editing software, such as Snagit or Sketch

Bonus Points:

• You've worked with Elasticsearch before and understand the limitations and advantages of distributed systems.
• Experience committing to an open source project.
• Happy working from the command line and able to write basic scripts and examples

Members of our docs team help shape the evolution of our products and services. We care deeply about giving you ownership of what you’re working on. We believe Elastic achieves greatness when you are free to pursue your ideas and are surrounded and challenged by your peers. You are encouraged to comment on anything, regardless of your role.

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 up to $1500 (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 committed to diversity as well as inclusion. We are an equal opportunity employer and committed to the principles of affirmative action. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law, ordinance or regulation. If you require any reasonable accessibility support, please email [email protected].

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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