Senior Technical Writer

Sanmina

• $90K — $100K *
Technical Services
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in technical writing.
  • Minimum of 8 years of related technical writing experience.
  • 5+ years in hardware electronics product development context.
  • Strong hands-on capability with enterprise hardware.
  • Experience in product photography and visual documentation tools.
  • Exceptional communication skills with a focus on design readability.
  • Demonstrated experience in leading cross-functional information-gathering meetings.

Responsibilities

  • Create technical documents including user guides and specifications in collaboration with product development teams.
  • Facilitate meetings to gather essential product information from engineering leaders.
  • Capture high-quality photographs and create visual aids for hardware documentation.
  • Utilize technical expertise to document complex hardware functionalities and procedures.
  • Manage and maintain the product documentation library and access control.
  • Identify documentation gaps and implement improvements in formatting and accessibility.
  • Develop engaging training materials and maintain compliance training matrices.

Benefits

  • Health insurance coverage.
  • Life and disability insurance.
  • Savings plan.
  • Company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO).
  • Eligibility for restricted stock unit awards depending on the role.
  • Participation in a discretionary bonus program.
Full Job Description
Job Purpose:

We are seeking a Senior Technical Writer to transform complex engineering processes and hardware specifications into beautiful, engaging, and highly readable customer-facing manuals and guides, particularly product user guides and product specification documentation. You will partner with our technical staff to create, design, edit, and photograph operational, maintenance, and instructional documentation for our state-of-the-art storage servers, high-compute servers, JBODs, and high-density GPU accelerator platforms. The ideal candidate has deep technical "wits", a hands-on approach to understanding enterprise hardware, and possesses a strong eye for document layout, typography, photography, and user experience, ensuring our technical publications meet the highest standards of quality and visual appeal. A key part of this role is the ability to independently evaluate, improve, and fill gaps in existing documentation. Most importantly, we are looking for someone who shares a genuine passion for the enterprise hardware industry and our products, and who is excited to be an integral part of our continued growth.

Nature of Duties/Responsibilities:
• Content Creation & Design: Work closely with product development teams (including mechanical, electrical, and firmware), as well as systems validation and test teams, to create technical documents that include product user guides, product specification documentation, product photos, marketing materials, maintenance manuals, and other product documentation as required.
• Cross-Functional Leadership & Information Gathering: Proactively own, schedule, and facilitate meetings with leaders across various engineering departments. Take charge of gathering essential product information, design details, and technical specifications directly from subject matter experts to drive the documentation process.
• Product Photography & Illustration: Take high-quality, professional photographs of new hardware products (Storage and High-Compute Servers, JBODs, GPU accelerator platforms) during various stages of assembly and testing to create clear visual aids, step-by-step assembly instructions, and engaging documentation.
• Hardware Proficiency: Leverage your strong technical know-how to deeply understand complex enterprise hardware architectures. Get hands-on with the equipment to accurately document features, troubleshooting steps, and operational procedures.
• Document Management: Own, create, and maintain the product documentation library, managing customer access through the Sanmina document management system.
• Continuous Improvement & Gap Analysis: Evaluate current content, proactively identify missing information to fill gaps, and develop new formatting methods to modernize documentation, making it intuitive and accessible for both technical and non-technical users.
• Training Leadership: Create clear, engaging technical training materials. Own and maintain the technical and compliance training matrix, ensuring all requirements are tracked and up-to-date.
• Mentorship: Work independently while serving as a leader and guide to junior team members, setting the standard for documentation excellence.

Education and Experience:
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent directly related experience.
• Minimum of 8 years of related experience in technical writing.
• 5+ years working as a technical writer in an electronics/hardware product development environment (specifically dealing with storage and high-compute servers, JBODs, and/or GPU accelerator platforms).
• Strong technical acumen and hands-on capability to interact with physical hardware.
• Experience in product photography, image editing, and incorporating visual media into technical documentation.
• Strong knowledge and recent experience using Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, or similar visual and layout tools.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with a demonstrated ability to format and design highly readable documents (Portfolio/samples of work demonstrating visual layout and hardware photography skills are required).
• Demonstrated experience interviewing Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and confidently leading cross-functional information-gathering meetings.
• Experience developing engaging technical training materials and tracking compliance matrices.
• Experience mentoring, guiding, or leading junior technical writers is highly preferred.
• Strong proficiency in MS Office, Atlassian Confluence, and Connex.
• Experience managing technical documentation libraries within enterprise Document Management Systems (DMS) and version control.
• Exposure to Agile Engineering databases is a strong plus.

Salary Range (annual): $90,000 - $100,000

Actual base pay within this range (determined at the offer stage) will be based on a candidate's years of relevant work experience, education, certifications, and skills, and is just one element of our total rewards package. The total rewards package also includes a variety of benefits, including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, savings plan, Company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO) for vacation and/or personal business and, depending on the role, may include eligibility for restricted stock unit awards and participation in a discretionary bonus program.

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