New The Skills of Tomorrow: how AI-exposed is every skill in 2026? See the data →
Elastic

Principal Technical Writer - Customer Onboarding

Elastic
Apply →
senior full-time United Kingdom

First indexed 9 Sept 2026

Description

We are seeking a Principal Technical Writer to lead the strategy and execution of our customer onboarding and 'Getting Started' content. Your mission is to transform our onboarding materials into a cohesive, narrative-driven experience that guides users to their first 'aha!' moment.

You will partner closely with the Self-Service (SSC) team, acting as a bridge between the field, product, and documentation to ensure our content is not just accurate, but effective at guiding trial-to-paid conversion. In this role, you will define the narrative architecture of our user journey, ensuring that every touchpoint, from first-time setup to advanced feature adoption, feels like a seamless, intentional story.

Responsibilities:

  • Drive the onboarding content strategy. Define and execute a cohesive narrative for how users learn to use our products, ensuring a seamless story from the first visit to successful deployment.
  • Align Field, Product, and Docs. Act as a central point of contact for stakeholders. Work with Product teams to understand roadmap changes, Field teams to identify friction points in real-world deployments, and Documentation teams to ensure high-quality content output.
  • Design user-focused flows. Create organized onboarding experiences. These should highlight best practices, troubleshooting, and clear next steps. Avoid confusing 'choose-your-own-adventure' methods.
  • Measure and Iterate. Use user research, support feedback, and telemetry to identify where users stall and iterate on content to reduce churn and improve time-to-first-value.

Requirements:

  • 7+ years of relevant experience. Experience in technical writing or developer-focused roles, with a proven track record in onboarding or user journey design.
  • Cross-functional leadership. Proven ability to lead initiatives and influence stakeholders across product, engineering, and sales/field organizations.
  • Deep narrative skills. Experience in creating compelling, cohesive stories for complex technical products.
  • Data-driven mindset. Comfortable using analytics, UXR, and support data to inform documentation decisions and prioritize work.
  • Collaborative spirit. Experience working in large, distributed organizations where alignment across multiple teams is critical to success.
  • Customer knowledge. Experience with self-service cloud products as a user or practitioner, with an understanding of how customers onboard, evaluate, and adopt technical tools.

Benefits:

  • Competitive pay based on the work you do here and not your previous salary
  • Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
  • Ability to craft your calendar with flexible locations and schedules for many roles
  • Generous number of vacation days each year
  • Increase your impact - We match up to $2000 (or local currency equivalent) for financial donations and service
  • Up to 40 hours each year to use toward volunteer projects you love
  • Embracing parenthood with minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave
This listing is enriched and indexed by YubHub. To apply, use the employer's original posting: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/elastic/jobs/8186937