Senior Technical Author - Ubuntu and Canonical products

As a senior technical author, you’ll be part of an engineering team, focused on a specific Canonical product. 

You will lead the team effort to create, maintain and improve documentation that serves the needs of the product's users, embracing the principles of the Diátaxis documentation framework. You will have a broad impact on - and responsibility for - the quality of the user experience with the product, and will contribute towards the long-term success of the project itself.

As a senior technical author on the team, you will participate in development of product strategy. You will combine technical expertise with leadership in documentation, collaborating with colleagues across the company to establish documentation as a first-class engineering discipline. You will help define documentation excellence, in product, process and practice.

You don't need to apply for this role as well as our Technical Author - Ubuntu and Canonical products post - please apply for just one of them. They are both handled in the same process, and there is absolutely no disadvantage in applying to one or the other. We will ensure that you are considered appropriately for the right position as part of the process.

What you'll do

• Contribute towards the development of documentation as a professional discipline at Canonical and beyond
• Create, maintain and improve tutorials, how-to guides, reference guides and explanatory material
• Address the needs of users including developers, system administrators and end-users
• Use and explore the product in depth, to help discover where the documentation needs to be improved
• Review, road-test and improve practical guides
• Update reference and explanation material in collaboration with colleagues
• Improve and correct documentation based on feedback from users and technical support
• Read design documents and specifications
• Standardise the structure, presentation, style and language of content across products
• Actively improve documentation, through attention to practice, process, tools and users’ needs

Our best candidate

• Has a solid and sustained track-record working with documentation in open-source contexts
• Has contributed to software products in depth, both as a coder and a documentation author
• Has demonstrably contributed to the advancement of software documentation practice, in their work or through participation in professional documentation communities
• Has software development experience in Python, JavaScript or other suitable languages
• Is familiar with application deployment, system operations, and infrastructure management
• Is qualified with a BS/BA or equivalent in Technical Communication, English, or Computer Science
• Has excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Has the ability to assimilate technical information rapidly from a variety of sources
• Has the character and flexibility to work in a fast-paced environment
• Is familiar with command line UNIX/Linux
• Is effective working in a distributed team
• Is confident using Ubuntu Desktop for all of the above
• Is familiar with Git or other version control systems
• Has knowledge of HTML and Markdown
• Is able to travel twice a year for up to two weeks for events

Canonical is a growing international software company that works with the open-source community to deliver Ubuntu, the world’s best free software platform. Our services help businesses worldwide reduce costs, improve efficiency and enhance security with Ubuntu.

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.

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