Staff Technical Writer

Databases are fundamental to every business in the world

At Cockroach Labs, we believe that what you build and where it takes you shouldn't be limited by the capabilities of your database. We created CockroachDB to be the most advanced cloud-native and distributed SQL database on the planet. Join us as we establish CockroachDB as the gold-standard modern database, enabling companies of any size to scale fast, survive disaster, and thrive everywhere.

About the role

We're seeking a highly experienced technical writer to join our world-class Documentation team. 

As a member of this team, you’ll create outstanding content that helps our growing community of customers and open-source users to succeed. Your work will span our product areas, concentrating on a short list of areas, such as Security or Observability, and shifting focus based on our content needs and strategy. Throughout, you’ll plan and drive special projects, educate and mentor other writers, and collaborate on projects with other parts of the organization.

Your wide-ranging experience and technical proficiency will enable you to collaborate with other highly talented colleagues to deliver comprehensive and effective documentation. At the same time, we’ll value your insightful feedback as we seek to continuously improve our product and processes.

You will

• Develop technical expertise in CockroachDB, expand your expertise in related technologies, and learn the perspectives of our users as they configure, use, and troubleshoot CockroachDB.
• Guide architects and operators as they plan to migrate to, secure, maintain, and monitor CockroachDB clusters—whether self-hosted or fully managed in CockroachDB Cloud.
• Educate developers as they navigate features unique to CockroachDB while working with a familiar SQL interface.
• Write concise and informative documentation in appropriate formats, such as tutorials, concepts, and references. Provide clear explanations of complex topics and features, and work with engineers to produce comprehensive reference content.
• Understand the information architecture of the Cockroach Labs documentation corpus and apply this understanding across your projects. 
• Help define and evolve the team’s processes and style conventions. 
• Understand the tooling and systems that power the public documentation, and recommend improvements and enhancements to our Docs Infrastructure team.  
• Regularly collaborate with other teams such as Engineering, Product, Training, Support, and Customer Success to keep our documentation up-to-date, effective, and user-centric.

Expectations

In your first 30 days, you’ll follow a custom onboarding plan authored by your manager, which includes Cockroach University course material, internal doc readings, information sessions about our product and company, hands-on time with the product, and discussions with your manager and colleagues. We believe that it's important to take this first month to become familiar with our technology and our company, so you will use CockroachDB throughout this period and beyond.

During this initial onboarding, you will develop enough expertise to begin your first documentation project. You will also start to review and edit documentation written by other technical writers on the team. 

Within about three months, you'll be fully integrated into the team, and work with one or two product managers and engineering teams to learn their product area and strategic focus. You will also begin contributing to efforts related to documentation conventions, processes, and tools to help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the team.

You have

• 8+ recent years of experience producing documentation for technical audiences.
• Experience using most of the following: Unix/Linux systems, public cloud services, containers and orchestration, database-specific technologies, SaaS tools for developers, Git, and docs-as-code workflows.
• Experience with tools, concepts, and best practices related to networking, security, DevOps, and infrastructure as code.
• Coding experience.
• Extensive experience related to the listed job responsibilities of authoring and collaborating on documentation.

The Team

Reporting to Mike Lewis, Manager, Documentation at Cockroach Labs.

Mike is one of the team’s two managers. He has been working on docs for nearly two decades, with past roles in DevOps and technologies across marketing, media, and finance. He enjoys the challenge of helping the team at CRL iterate on its already impressive docs and processes, working with an incredibly talented and kind team, and getting to know such an innovative product and its impact on customers. Outside work, Mike enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, collecting music, and listening to public radio.

• Org Structure: Cockroach Labs has a centralized Docs Team in the Education Department, which is part of the Product Division.
• Collaboration: The Docs Team meets weekly to discuss matters of shared interest. Writers also rotate membership on sub-teams focused on style and release notes. Engineers and product managers provide subject-matter expertise and technical and reviews. Writers provide peer review for each other.
• Growth: Team management maintains an internal Competencies table to provide a shared basis for team member leveling and to enable managers to focus on growth opportunities with each writer.
• Culture: Cockroach Labs continually works to foster an environment of respect among team members, with open communication, high achievement, and work-life balance. Within the company, the Docs team is valued for the support our content and expertise provides to the business.

Our Benefits

• Competitive Health Insurance Coverage (for you & your dependents!)
• Paid parental leave (with baby bucks)
• Flex Fridays
• Flexible time off & flexible hours
• Education reimbursement
• Relocation support

Cockroach Labs is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer building a diverse and inclusive workforce. If you need additional accommodations to feel comfortable during your interview process, please email us at accessibility@cockroachlabs.com.

The annual anticipated base salary range for U.S. candidates for this role is USD $130,000 to $185,000, plus commission if a sales role. We set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. In order to be compliant with local legislation, as well as to provide greater transparency to candidates, we share salary ranges on all job postings regardless of desired hiring location.  Actual salaries may vary and fall outside of this range depending on factors such as a candidate’s qualifications, geographic location, skills, experience, and competencies. In addition, we are often open to a wide variety of profiles, and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted. Salary is one component of the Cockroach Labs’ total rewards package, which includes stock options, health insurance, life and disability insurance, funds towards professional development resources, flexible PTO, paid holidays, and parental leave, to name a few! Salaries for candidates outside the U.S. will vary based on local compensation structures.