Senior Technical Writer, Optics

Job Overview

Position Summary

The Senior Technical Writer is responsible for building and maintaining the technical documentation framework for a fast-growing engineering and manufacturing organization. This role works directly with engineers, manufacturing teams, Program Management, Quality, and technical leaders to capture complex technical knowledge and translate it into clear, accurate, controlled, and usable documentation. The successful candidate will combine strong technical aptitude, structured thinking, curiosity, communication skills, and the ability to work effectively with experienced technical teams.

Location
This is an onsite/hybrid role based in the Rochester, NY area, with an expectation of spending at least three days per week onsite working closely with engineering and manufacturing teams.

Job Requirements

Key Responsibilities
Technical Documentation & Knowledge Capture
• Develop and maintain engineering and manufacturing documentation, including specifications, design documents, process specifications, work instructions, SOPs, test and validation procedures, troubleshooting guides, technical reports, and engineering standards.
• Work directly with subject matter experts to capture technical knowledge from discussions, drawings, test data, working notes, and practical experience.
• Lead structured interviews and working sessions to clarify requirements, assumptions, dependencies, interfaces, acceptance criteria, and decision rationale.
• Translate complex technical concepts into clear, concise documentation appropriate for the intended audience.
• Identify gaps, inconsistencies, and undocumented practices and work with technical owners to resolve them.
• Convert tribal knowledge into structured, reusable organizational knowledge.
• Ensure documentation is aligned with engineering change, configuration-management, quality, and product-release processes.
• Manage multiple documentation projects and priorities while coordinating inputs and approvals from cross-functional stakeholders.
• Develop a prioritized documentation roadmap based on engineering, manufacturing, quality, and business needs.

Process & Document Management
• Document end-to-end engineering and manufacturing workflows, including process steps, ownership, inputs, outputs, controls, decision points, and acceptance criteria.
• Establish scalable document structures, naming conventions, metadata, ownership, revision control, and lifecycle practices.
• Define authoritative sources of technical information and improve traceability across requirements, designs, processes, test results, and released documentation.
• Ensure documentation aligns with engineering change, configuration-management, quality, and product-release processes.
• Develop practical templates and documentation standards and reduce duplicate, outdated, or conflicting information.

Documentation Systems & Execution
• Manage documentation priorities and projects from discovery through review, approval, publication, maintenance, and retirement.
• Develop a prioritized documentation roadmap aligned with engineering, manufacturing, quality, and business needs.
• Partner with Engineering, Quality, Program Management, Operations, and IT to improve documentation workflows, repositories, and collaboration tools.
• Support PLM, document-management, and knowledge-management systems.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, and automate documentation processes.

Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Build trusted relationships with engineers and technical leaders across multiple disciplines.
• Facilitate documentation working sessions and independently convert technical discussions into structured outputs.
• Communicate effectively across different technical functions and levels of seniority.
• Drive adoption of documentation standards without direct authority.
• Balance documentation rigor and control with usability, speed, and the needs of a fast-moving organization.

What your background should look like

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering or another technical discipline, or equivalent technical experience.
• 10+ years of technical documentation experience in engineering, manufacturing, hardware, semiconductor, industrial, or similarly complex technical environments.
• Demonstrated ability to understand complex technical systems and communicate them clearly.
• Experience working directly with engineers and technical subject matter experts.
• Experience developing specifications, engineering procedures, process documentation, work instructions, or similar technical content.
• Familiarity with configuration management, revision control, requirements management, document control, and quality-management systems.
• Experience with PLM, document-management, knowledge-management, or engineering collaboration platforms.
• Experience working within a quality management system or controlled document environment.
• Experience creating process maps, technical diagrams, system architecture diagrams, workflows, photographs, and annotated images.
• Strong analytical, structured-thinking, written, verbal, and facilitation skills.
• Ability to independently manage documentation from discovery through publication and lifecycle maintenance.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to build credibility with experienced technical professionals.
• Ability to provide technical writing samples or a portfolio, subject to confidentiality restrictions.
• Experience managing documentation projects from initial discovery through review, approval, publication, maintenance, and retirement.
• Ability to influence stakeholders and drive adoption of documentation standards without direct authority.

Highly Preferred
• Experience in optics, electronics, semiconductors, automation, precision equipment, manufacturing, or complex hardware development.
• Experience documenting both products and manufacturing equipment.
• Experience helping a rapidly scaling organization establish disciplined engineering documentation and knowledge-management practices.

#TEOpticsJobs #USOpticsJobs

Competencies