About this Senior Technical Writer / Senior Documentation Engineer role at Backbase
Role Overview
The Senior Documentation Engineer is the documentation authority for a value stream (department). You manage the documentation system, information architecture, AI workflows, quality standards, and strategic direction for your domain. Your documentation is vital for implementation teams and partners that integrate the Backbase software in the bank's software ecosystem. You actively seek out users' feedback and use it to improve the documentation and the documentation system.
🎯 Key Responsibilities
- Documentation system: Manages the AI-powered documentation system that is based on docs-as-code and Git. Continuously improves the tools and processes and kills bottlenecks.
- Documentation skills: Produces developer documentation and functional documentation with a clear separation in content types. Enforces writing style guidelines, terminology, templates, grammar, and spelling. Is hyperfocused on quality, seamless content flow, and avoiding bloat. Owns the information hierarchy of assigned documentation sets. Acts as a documentation authority within the value stream and advises teams on their documentation needs.
- Technical and domain knowledge: Understands the readers' SDLC and how documentation plays a vital role in their work. Has a basic understanding of software development. Has a deep understanding of the products delivered by their value stream and can connect it to the wider Backbase platform. Quickly learns new functional domains and is able to interview R&D product managers to understand the product. Can converse easily with R&D developers to assess technical documentation needs or check technical details. Translates this technical and domain knowledge into effective instructions for AI-powered tools.
- Legal and support terms: Understands the support terms and the legal impact of the documentation.
- User advocate: Knows the target audience and their documentation needs and pain points. Translates this knowledge into strategic advice to the value stream leadership.
🎓 Qualifications & Experience
- Experience: 4-10 years as a documentation specialist, technical writer, or equivalent, in the field of developer documentation.
Education:
Either one of the following:
- Bachelor/Master's degree in software engineering or related field, combined with professional-level language proficiency
- University-level analytical skills, combined with professional-level language proficiency and a strong aptitude for technology
🧠 General Competencies
👤 Personal
- Accountability: Tracks work items vigorously, routinely spots gaps and bugs and creates appropriate work items. Keeps their promises. Manages their calendar, inbox, messages, meetings, and office attendance as a professional.
- Prioritization: Focuses on delivering customer value, responds quickly to user requests, divides time across release-related work, bug reports, and improvements.
- Growth mindset: Seeks out learning opportunities, asks for feedback, asks questions, and helps others to learn and grow. Challenges decisions when they have a concern. Actively participates in group meetings and makes their voice heard during discussions. Suggests and leads improvement projects.
👥 People
- Stakeholder management: Communicates pro-actively, keeping managers and stakeholders actively updated. Raises issues with the appropriate team or leader. Follows-up with people. Suggests changes to value stream leaders and discusses their requests and suggestions as an equal.
- Teams: Builds confidence and trust with their teams through reliability, predictability, and transparency of process and output. Models best behavior to fellow team members and holds them accountable for quality.
- Collaboration: Establishes a fruitful collaboration with teams and fellow documentation engineers. Balances helping others and saying no. Practices active listening and clear communication. Focuses on problem solving. May coach and supervise less experienced team members.
🔄 Project Management
- Process: Follows established processes and communicates these with their teams. Drives improvements to processes.
- Projects: Oversees a large or complex documentation project with various stakeholders from beginning to end.