Director, Technical Writing

GitLab GitLab · Enterprise · Canada +1 · Remote · Technical Writing

Director of Technical Writing to lead documentation strategy, focusing on AI integration, process redesign, and collaboration with Engineering, Product Management, and UX. The role involves assessing team structure, improving collaboration, and enhancing the user experience of the docs site, aiming to make documentation a more integrated and actionable part of the GitLab platform.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead the Technical Writing organization through process evaluation and redesign, with a focus on making documentation creation more efficient and better connected to product development.
  2. Drive the team’s AI readiness by identifying where AI can improve workflows, reduce unnecessary handoffs, and support better documentation outcomes.
  3. Partner with Engineering to shift documentation earlier in the development process and establish shared ownership of first-draft technical content.
  4. Collaborate with Product Management and UX to identify ways technical documentation can surface more directly in the product experience.
  5. Shape the team structure and operating model so it supports current priorities, healthy management scope, and future capability needs.

Skills

Required

  • Experience leading technical writing or documentation teams through organizational, process, or operating model change.
  • Fluency with AI in both strategic and practical contexts, including using AI to improve workflows and evaluating where human judgment remains essential.
  • Ability to build strong partnerships with Engineering, Product Management, UX, and other functions that influence product and content quality.
  • Judgment to balance innovation with practicality, including a thoughtful approach to automation that improves work without treating people as replaceable.
  • Creative problem-solving skills and comfort proposing several workable paths forward when facing ambiguity or long-standing constraints.
  • Experience developing leaders and teams, including assessing capabilities, setting direction, and supporting change across an established organization.
  • Strength in asynchronous collaboration and communication across distributed teams, with the ability to create clarity and momentum across time zones.
  • Technical credibility in documentation, developer workflows, docs-as-code environments, and we also welcome candidates with transferable leadership experience from adjacent disciplines.
  • Content strategy expertise to shape documentation priorities, information architecture, and how technical content connects to product goals and user needs.

What the JD emphasized

  • AI readiness
  • AI can improve workflows
  • evaluate where AI can improve workflows
  • AI as a core productivity multiplier
  • incorporate AI into their daily workflows