Sr. Technical Writer

Full-time - Entry Level

Palo Alto, CA

Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers

About the position

This is a full-time, career position in the automotive Technical Publications department as a Technical Writer on the Owner's Manual team. This team is responsible for documentation of owner-facing information including Owner's Manuals, Warranties, Emergency Response Guides, and Safety Information Guides. The documents are delivered in-print, in-vehicle, and/or online (depending on the deliverable).

Responsibilities

• Gather information and requests from, and foster excellent working relationships with, subject matter experts (such as engineers, quality assurance, software developers, product managers, and technicians)
• Consider all aspects of a document request. Anticipate potential downstream issues that were not considered by others
• Develop new and/or revise existing content as necessary and on-time, based on the request
• Work closely with team and manager to triage workload and priorities, while keeping track of upcoming delivery dates
• Work closely with Firmware and Program Management teams to keep track of upcoming changes and release dates (Project Management)
• Ensure content is accurate (for example, validate information accuracy, peer review others' content, and follow review processes)
• Strategize and implement process improvements, for both documentation processes and peripherally-related processes. Manage tasks and information flow using collaboration software (such as JIRA, Wrike, SharePoint, and custom databases)

Requirements

• Technical writing experience (software and/or hardware) with knowledge of relevant content development tools
• Bachelor's degree, certificate in Technical Writing, or equivalent professional experience
• Strong attention to detail, strong personal organization, collaboration, and time management skills
• Ability to be creative and open-minded when approaching problems
• Markup language experience (such as HTML, XML, DITA XML, or SGML)
• Structured authoring tool experience (such as oXygen, XMetaL, structured FrameMaker, or Arbortext Editor)
• Content Management System (CMS) experience (such as SDL/RWS, etc.)
• Style guideline experience (Simplified Technical English, S1000D, MIL-STD, MMSTP, or custom style guide creation or contributions)