Senior Technical Documentation Engineer (Remote, Canada)

Ground News

Date listed

2 months ago

Remote

Yes

Found on:

HN Community

Keywords: remote ecs react elasticache sns node android cloudfront typescript ios lambda rds javascript aws

Senior Technical Documentation Engineer (Remote, Canada)

Who We are?

In a world where political polarization and media distrust are at an all-time high, Ground News offers people a better way to stay informed and open-minded. Our mobile app, web app, and browser extension are home to a community of mindful newsreaders who use our news comparison platform to easily see every side of a story and engage with news beyond their filter bubble.

Unlike most news companies, our audience and our values do not align with any specific political ideology. Unlike most tech platforms, we don’t use manipulative algorithms to keep users on our platform to sell more ads. We are supported by our readers who pay for a subscription to build a more nuanced understanding of the news, the world, and themselves.

#1 on Product Hunt (Oct 19, '20), #2 (Nov 17, '21), #2 (Mar 26, '21)
Techstars portfolio company
Winner of Digital News Innovation Challenge by Facebook
Winner of Mobile Apps Showdown at CES
Featured at Mobile World Congress
Featured on New York Times, Financial Times, Newsmax, Forbes and more
Our site has even been retweeted by the POTUS

The Opportunity

As Ground News continues to evolve and expand its offerings, we are integrating increasingly complex systems to introduce new functionalities and improve user experiences. To support this growth, we are seeking to hire a candidate who can facilitate the broad understanding of the technologies and systems we use to the company at large.

The ideal candidate is experienced in technical writing and adept at liaising between technical and non-technical teams. You are a quick learner, capable of understanding the intricacies of a multifaceted platform and using that knowledge to field questions and suggestions from stakeholders, bridging the gap between technical and non-technical teams. While we’re not looking for an expert in any given technology, the ideal candidate would be familiar enough with at least some of the technologies we use to be able to affect some of the simpler changes themselves.

What You’ll Do

Develop a comprehensive understanding of our platform's various systems by collaborating closely with system owners. Your goal will be to attain not just a surface-level knowledge but a deep, nuanced understanding that allows you to see the interconnectedness of all parts.
Act as the pivotal technical intermediary among the engineering teams and non-technical stakeholders. Your task involves fielding technical inquiries, suggestions, and feedback, translating complex system functionalities into actionable plans, and conveying these insights in an accessible manner.
Generate and maintain internal facing documentation to ensure that all team members have a clear understanding of how the various systems of the Ground News platform work and interact.
Be involved in planning proposed features, particularly when their implementation would span multiple subsystems, such as server and mobile clients, ensuring cohesive implementation.
Apply your technical skills to personally implement smaller, straightforward modifications and enhancements within our systems.
Distill actionable insights by collating user feedback and analytics data, especially for newly implemented features, to inform and guide further iterations and enhancements

What You Have

In this role, you will engage with a diverse set of technologies that underpin the Ground News platform. You should have experience with, or the ability to quickly get up to speed on, the following key technologies and concepts:

Documentation Expertise (Minimum 2 year of experience recommended): You’re capable of generating accessible documentation, technical guides, FAQs for internal teams as well as external-facing materials such as user help articles, product descriptions, promotional copy, etc
API Architecture (Minimum 2 years of experience required in either back-end or front-end development): You have a firm understanding of the relationship between back-end servers and front-end clients and know in general which is responsible for what in the platform
AWS Dev-Ops Infrastructure (Minimum 1 year of experience recommended): You’ve done at least some work with AWS services including EC2, RDS, CloudFront, CloudWatch, ECS, Elasticache, Route 53, WAF & Shield, Lambda, SQS, and SNS and are familiar with the role each plays.
Web Technologies (Minimum 1 year of experience recommended in some combination of the below): You’re familiar with at least the basics of web technologies such as JavaScript/Typescript, HTML/CSS, Node JS, React JS.
Mobile Technologies: You’re familiar with at least the basics of native Android and iOS development concepts. While direct development skills are not required, a familiarity with the key distinctions between and standard practices within both ecosystems is essential.
Communication Facilitator: You excel at bridging communication gaps between individuals and teams, facilitating clear and productive interactions to align technical and non-technical stakeholders on project objectives and timelines.

Bonus Points if You Have

A deep curiosity and interest in the political system, and the relationship between tech and media
Experience using any of Ground News’ products (app, website, extension, newsletters)
A passion for data analysis and the tools that facilitate it

Why work at Ground?

Co-founded by a former NASA engineer and Bain consultant, a position with Ground News provides an unparalleled learning experience both personally and professionally. At Ground, we prioritize growth: both for our business and team members. You’ll have the freedom to work remotely and play a key role in the development of Ground News products.

This is an opportunity to work with a growing and mighty team that is fighting every day to build a world where cooperative, civil debate is the norm, media is accountable, and critical thought is the baseline of our information consumption. Ground is based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, but this role is remote.

If you think Ground News is a good fit for you, send your resume and cover letter to us!