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Senior Technical Writer - Contract

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How would it feel for your contributions to have a major impact across all game development at Blizzard? This is your chance to find out! Blizzard Entertainment is developing a modern, cross-platform game engine and C++ libraries to share across all of Blizzard and power the future of Blizzard games. These projects advance technology both at Blizzard and in the gaming industry at large. You’ll work with a collaborative team of experienced and highly skilled developers who are working with individuals across the company to deliver some truly epic technology. Get in early and help shape the future of gaming. Are you in?

We need a Technical Writer to help generate and organize documentation on a broad range of highly technical topics, from tools workflows to application programming interface (API) usage. We’re looking to buff up the material we have on the game engine we’re building for future Blizzard titles, the shared technology already in use by live games, and the processes we use as a team.

The ideal candidate is highly organized, has excellent communication skills, and has a passion for distilling complex systems and concepts into concise user documentation. This is a remote six-month contract position with the potential to convert to full-time.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with engineers creating and consuming our products to develop clear and concise documentation for technically complex systems and processes.
• Review and edit Doxygen-style API documentation written by engineers as comments within their code. Provide guidance on how to use Doxygen properly.
• Become the expert on the contents of documents in multiple locations and formats. Find and squash redundancy.
• Organize and audit our documents to keep information relevant over time.
• Digest all material you encounter, even when generated for a purpose other than documentation. When it adds value, fold it into the team’s knowledge base.
• Analyze and plan the knowledge we capture on a holistic level, not just on the level of the individual artifacts being created.
• Establish and manage team-wide standards, style guides, best practices, and processes surrounding documentation.
• Champion good documentation habits across the team, and help be the voice of our product’s users in terms of defining the next most important thing to document.
• Document team processes and keep our Confluence organized and accurate.

Requirements

• A solid foundation in programming, API design, and software architecture.
• Experience writing API documentation or guides for backend programmers
• Experience explaining technical topics to a non-technical audience
• Experience with Doxygen commands (Doxygen configuration knowledge is a plus)
• Familiarity with using source control systems (Git in particular is a plus – knowing how to clone, branch, create PRs, resolve conflicts, create GitHub pages, etc)
• Ability to drive actions that rely on input from other people to completion
• Ability to learn new systems and develop product expertise quickly

Philosophies & Values

We’re looking for someone who…

• Applies discretion to the use of their time. Actively advocates against writing docs that might seem useful but are imminently going to be out of date.
• Approaches communication from a place of creativity. A writer that doesn’t always take the straightforward approach – who is happy to put together a tutorial, a video, samples, etc – instead of defaulting to an explanation always.
• Can navigate large amounts of desired documentation without getting overwhelmed, while maintaining a healthy work/life balance.
• Does the right thing, even when it’s difficult.
• Proactively seeks out thoughts from those who aren’t the first to speak up.
• Values diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.
• Strives to learn from the knowledge and experiences of those around them.

Pluses

• Familiarity with Confluence, markdown, HTML, and/or CSS
• Familiarity with Unity, Unreal, or any in-house game engine
• Ability to read and understand C++ source code
• Experience working as the sole tech writer supporting a large team
• Experience working with content creators (designers, animators, artists)