Sr. Technical Writer

Category-defining tech. Career-defining work. Lots of tech companies disrupt. But, many fail when they try to scale. We're different. CockroachDB makes it easier for companies to build and scale apps. This is how and why we're helping some of the most innovative companies on the planet. We tackle problems head-on and focus on solutions that create lasting impact. Because when our customers win, we all win. The Role We're seeking an experienced technical writer to join our world-class Documentation team. In this role, you'll create highly impactful technical documentation across the full CockroachDB platform—spanning developer experiences, operations, security, and emerging capabilities. You'll collaborate closely with engineers, product managers, and other writers to produce public documentation and craft clear, helpful copy across product interfaces. Beyond user assistance, you'll contribute insights on improving the product, evolving our processes, and collaborating across departments. Our team is committed to staying ahead of the curve—innovating with AI to analyze content, ensure quality, and eliminate toil, freeing writers to focus on what they do best: producing the most effective content for our customers. This role is hybrid, requiring three days per week in either our New York City or San Francisco office. You Will Translate complex, highly technical concepts into clear, actionable documentation for engineers, operators, and technical decision-makers. Develop in-depth product knowledge and collaborate with engineering and product teams to ensure documentation aligns with user workflows and company priorities. Write comprehensive content across multiple formats—tutorials, how-to guides, conceptual overviews, reference documentation—and contribute to copy for release notes, UIs, APIs, and CLIs. Cover topics that may include developer workflows, schema design and migration, deployment automation and scaling, cluster performance and operational best practices, backups and disaster recovery, monitoring and observability, authentication and authorization, network security, vector search and AI workloads, data governance, and more. Benefit from a balanced work distribution, gaining experience across diverse areas of the product while reserving time for deep dives into larger projects within specific product domains. Get to know a variety of user workflows and priorities—from developers building applications to operators maintaining critical workloads for high-scale, globally distributed systems. Collaborate with dedicated documentation infrastructure engineers who build and maintain our tooling. Offer meaningful input into workflows, automation, and other technical solutions that improve how the team works. Contribute to internal style guides, processes, and policy enhancements within the Documentation team. Share your learnings and expertise across the team, helping to build collective technical depth and writing excellence. The Expectations In your first 30 days, you'll follow a custom onboarding plan that includes Cockroach University courses, internal documentation, and product training. You'll get hands-on experience using CockroachDB and our documentation tools, and start to contribute to the documentation with the supervision of other writers. By three months in, you'll have developed enough expertise to help prioritize and plan documentation work, contributing independently to the CockroachDB docs site. You'll also engage in initiatives that shape our content standards, processes, and documentation infrastructure. You Have Extensive experience planning and authoring documentation for engineers or other technical users, through independent research, collaboration with engineers, and hands-on testing. A proven ability to learn, use, and explain highly technical products and systems quickly and accurately. Hands-on experience with Linux/Unix systems. Familiarity with relevant technical domains such as distributed systems, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), containerization and orchestration, networking and security, infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines, application development workflows, database internals, performance tuning, OpenAPI standards, or one or more programming languages (e.g., Python, Java, Go, JavaScript). Proficiency with Git and docs-as-code workflows. A proven ability to collaborate effectively across engineering, product, and design teams. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a curiosity-driven approach to understanding complex technologies. The Team Management: This role reports to Mike Lewis, a manager on the Documentation team. Mike has worked as a technical writer and manager across various industries. He is passionate about helping writers grow their skills and impact, and further develop their careers. Org Structure: The Documentation team is part of the Education Department, within the Product Division. Also within Education, the Training team provides opportunities to collaborate in ensuring that customers are supported through multiple methods of learning, across their journey with CockroachDB. Writers also work with dedicated documentation infrastructure engineers who build tools and automation to improve team efficiency and enhance the end-user experience. We aim to provide strong technical support while maintaining meaningful writer involvement in shaping the systems that enable their work. Collaboration: The Docs team meets weekly to discuss new information and challenges, triage work, demo their work or learnings, and plan toward shared goals. Growth & Culture: We emphasize open and effective communication, respect, and work-life balance. The team uses an internal competencies framework to guide growth and leveling. Our writers are recognized across Cockroach Labs for their technical depth and their vital role in enabling customer success. 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. Cockroach Labs has a hybrid work model, with Roachers that are local to one of our offices coming in on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and working flexibly the rest of the week. While we’ve learned valuable lessons working remotely, nothing can replace the connection, creativity, and fun that occurs when Roachers get together and we are committed to fostering a workplace that encourages collaboration and allows us all to do our best work. Benefits Stock Options Medical Insurance Vision Insurance Dental Insurance Life and Disability Insurance Professional Development Funds Flexible Time Off Paid Holidays Paid Sick Days Paid Parental Leave Retirement Benefits Mental Wellbeing Benefits And more! The annual anticipated base salary range for U.S. candidates for this role is listed in USD below. Salary is one component of the Cockroach Labs’ Total Rewards package, which also includes, for each employee: stock options, medical insurance, vision insurance, dental insurance, life and disability insurance, funds towards professional development resources, flexible paid time off, 11 paid holidays a year, 10 paid sick days a year, paid parental leave, a 401(k) plan, and wellbeing benefits. We set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. 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. Salaries for candidates outside the U.S. will vary based on local compensation structures. This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our Careers Page. Annual Anticipated Base Salary Range (U.S) $128,000—$169,000 USD