Technical Writing

Learns the product, the audience, and the style guide while keeping existing documentation accurate and legible.

Writing craft

Achieves clarity with conciseness and accessibility. Understands the writing style guide and adheres to it. Checks for cohesion in tone and style with existing documentation.

Product & audience knowledge

Learns the product well enough to document new features accurately with guidance from engineers and Product. Asks who a page is for before writing it.

Information architecture

Places new content where the existing structure says it belongs. Reads through existing documentation and updates or corrects it for legibility.

Delivery & process

Works closely with the Product Engineering team to incorporate new releases into existing documentation on schedule. Ships changes through the normal review process and acts on the feedback received.

Collaboration & review

Communicates internally and externally in a respectful manner. Performs pull-request reviews for peers with a focus on writing, style, and grammar. Asks questions early when a specification is unclear.

Leadership & impact

Acts as a critical advisor for UI copy and names for things, referencing where terms might collide and attempting to find the best explanation for users. Not yet expected to mentor others.

Documents whole features independently and starts to improve the documentation as a product.

Writing craft

Understands the writing style guide and adds to or refines it. Writes documentation that rarely needs structural rework in review. Accurately captures all relevant content and resources, establishing visibility for users.

Product & audience knowledge

Strong understanding of the product space and capabilities to inform high levels of accuracy in documentation. Reflects on user feedback and either categorizes it as won’t fix or turns it into something actionable.

Information architecture

Thinks through and files issues for how to refine the docs site and UI. Notices when a page is in the wrong place or duplicates another and proposes a fix.

Delivery & process

Owns the documentation for a feature area from specification through release with little guidance. Estimates their own work and participates in planning. Keeps a backlog of documentation debt and works it down.

Collaboration & review

Performs pull-request reviews for peers that consider flow and the audience, as well as the goals of the product. Listens to the priorities and concerns of others, acknowledges differing perspectives, and anticipates their reactions. Actively participates in meetings and creates cross-team collaboration where necessary to address business goals.

Leadership & impact

Helps the Product team establish harmony between written and visual communication in UI copy. Helps onboard new writers to the style guide and tooling.

Owns the reader’s experience across a product area and is the team’s reference for voice, tone, and structure.

At this point, a person is mastering how effective they can be as an individual contributor.

Writing craft

Acutely aware of the audience and defers voice and tone to meet the needs of the user. Ensures there is a clear path for a first-time user and understands how and when to weave in advanced material such as caveats and warnings.

Product & audience knowledge

Has an understanding of the wider ecosystem of tools so that they know what context users may or may not be coming from. Gathers customer impressions of products and services and integrates this feedback into decision making.

Information architecture

Considers overall information architecture both in writing and while reviewing. Thinks through what the user needs exactly at the point of learning to reduce cognitive overhead. Owns the structure of a product area’s documentation.

Delivery & process

Plans multi-week documentation efforts, gives reliable estimates, and delivers on them. Understands with depth what the organization and company OKRs are, and performs audits on their content to make sure documentation is achieving those goals. Adjusts well to shifting priorities when necessary.

Collaboration & review

Understands with depth when and how users will perceive naming conventions and UI copy, and thinks through potential trade-offs and benefits for different directions. Demonstrates openness to others’ ideas, adapts their communication style to the audience, and effectively and accurately shares credit for ideas and collaborative efforts.

Leadership & impact

Helps support the work of peers both on the team and in the community at large by engaging in pairing sessions, reviewing, and providing mentoring. Mentors Technical Writer I and II teammates informally.

Sets documentation standards and plans for the team, and makes other writers more effective.

At this point, the majority of one's time is spent scaling their own skills to help others.

Writing craft

Conducts competitive teardowns and illuminates new patterns and industry standards for documentation, educating peers and coworkers. Their own writing is the example the style guide points to.

Product & audience knowledge

Attends support pairing prepared with ideas for improving the docs based on the customer feedback surfaced that week, or with well-formed questions to develop such ideas collaboratively. Helps shape support pairing to make it more efficient and effective.

Information architecture

Owns the information architecture of the documentation as a whole. Illuminates new patterns and industry standards for information architecture and leads the team in adopting them.

Delivery & process

Develops new plans and projects for documentation, creating one-page proposals on how to level up to better serve users or business needs, and sees them through. Coordinates documentation work across several writers and releases.

Collaboration & review

Works on integrations or materials that aid partnerships within the ecosystem. Creates cross-team collaboration with Engineering, Product, and Support so documentation is planned alongside features rather than after them.

Leadership & impact

Gives review feedback with a mind toward the growth of the individual being reviewed: thinks through not just the content of the review but how to explain something so it guides the person in the future. Notices recurring friction or confusion that impedes team success and creates resources that clarify or solve these issues, ensuring they are easy to locate.

Sets the direction for documentation across the company and grows the writing organization.

At this point, one is helping others be the best that they can be, removing themselves and meeting others where they are.

Writing craft

Develops proven systems and approaches to technical writing and replicates them across the team so that others may learn from and improve on them. Owns the style guide and the standards behind it.

Product & audience knowledge

Maintains deep knowledge of the customer base, the competitive landscape, and industry documentation practice, and incorporates that analysis into documentation strategy.

Information architecture

Owns the long-term shape of documentation across products: what exists, how it is organized, and how readers move between products. Anticipates the implications their structural decisions have on others and pursues mutually beneficial strategies.

Delivery & process

Sets goals for the documentation portfolio and measures against them. Works to refine team processes to ensure everyone can be as productive as possible. Critically reviews multiple plans and adjusts as needed.

Collaboration & review

Anticipates the needs of those around them and is respectful in async hygiene: teammates can reach them or know their status during working hours. Fills out process docs without having to be asked. Removes barriers by working with other teams around a shared need or customer benefit.

Leadership & impact

Mentors and actively drives the skills of the immediate or extended team. Considers team morale one of their initiatives: actively strives to support others, make sure their voices are heard, and illuminate others’ work. Builds cohesion within the team and develops its next leaders.