Lead Technical Writer

About Sift

At Sift, we're redefining how modern machines are built, tested, and operated. Our platform gives engineers real-time observability over high-frequency telemetry, eliminating bottlenecks and enabling faster, more reliable development.

Sift was born from our work at SpaceX on Dragon, Falcon, Starlink, and Starship—where scaling telemetry, debugging flight systems, and ensuring mission reliability demanded new infrastructure. Founded by a team from SpaceX, Google, and Palantir, Sift is built for mission-critical systems where precision and scalability are non-negotiable.

About the Role

Sift is hiring a senior-level Technical Writer who can own, lead, and scale our documentation function. This role is ideal for someone who loves building systems, elevating doc quality, and coaching other writers—while still rolling up their sleeves and producing world-class technical content.

You will architect the entire documentation ecosystem at Sift: docs-as-code workflows, information architecture, content strategy, writing standards, review processes, and mentoring junior writers. You'll collaborate closely with engineering, product, and go-to-market teams to translate deeply technical systems into clear, accurate, and highly usable documentation for advanced engineering teams in aerospace, defense, and manufacturing.

This is our first senior documentation hire. You will shape the discipline, define best practices, and help grow a small team (2–3 writers) over time while remaining a strong individual contributor.

What You’ll Do

Documentation Leadership

• Lead Sift’s documentation strategy, structure, and roadmap—owning docs end-to-end across product areas.

• Build documentation standards, style guides, review processes, and quality controls.

• Mentor and coach 1–3 technical writers as we grow the team (player-coach model).

• Implement and optimize docs-as-code tooling, CI/CD pipelines, linting systems (e.g., Vale), and publishing workflows.

Hands-On Content Development

• Write and maintain high-quality technical documentation:

  • API references

  • gRPC service docs

  • Tutorials and onboarding guides

  • Conceptual docs and architecture explanations

  • Release notes, migration guides, and integration patterns

• Partner directly with engineers and PMs to document complex workflows involving real-time telemetry, distributed systems, and advanced data pipelines.

Systems Ownership

• Own information architecture and content discoverability across the docs site.

• Manage documentation repositories using Git/GitHub and industry-standard docs tooling (MkDocs, Docusaurus, Mintlify, etc.).

• Establish a docs taxonomy and navigation structure aligned with best-practice frameworks like Diátaxis.

• Ensure all documentation meets accessibility, clarity, technical accuracy, and consistency standards.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Engineering and Product to ensure accurate and timely documentation releases.

• Work with Developer Experience, Field Engineering, and Marketing on technical content that supports onboarding, adoption, and customer success.

• Act as the documentation representative to key customers as needed.

  
  

What You Bring

• 5–10+ years of experience in technical writing, developer documentation, or documentation leadership roles.

• Experience building or modernizing docs-as-code environments (e.g., MkDocs, Docusaurus, Sphinx, Storybook, Swagger/OpenAPI, etc.).

• Strong technical depth: familiarity with Python, APIs, gRPC, event-driven architectures, cloud infrastructure, and modern software workflows.

• Experience mentoring or leading other writers—setting standards, reviewing work, and coaching to improve quality.

• A track record of raising documentation quality, reducing support volume, and increasing product adoption.

• Expertise with documentation frameworks such as Diátaxis and the Google style guide.

• Strong project management skills—able to run multiple doc projects, prioritize effectively, and coordinate cross-functionally.

• A bias for clarity, organization, and creating systems that scale.

Location:

Sift’s headquarters is in El Segundo, CA. We collaborate in person twice a week—on Mondays and Thursdays—and come together for a full week every two months. While we prefer team members to be local, we’re open to relocating candidates to LA or considering remote work from the San Francisco area for the right candidate.

Salary range: $120,000 - $200,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits.

Eligibility:

U.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual such as an asylee or refugee in compliance with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) regulations.