Technical Writer

JOB DESCRIPTION AND POSITION REQUIREMENTS:

We are seeking a technical writing professional to work closely with our program’s chief engineer defining and documenting this large scale project, eventually creating a program of record in the long term. You will be a key component of our DevSecOps Department in San Diego, CA at the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) at Penn State. ARL’s purpose is to research and develop innovative solutions to challenging scientific, engineering, and technology problems in support of the Navy, the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Intel Community (IC). The ideal candidate will be comfortable in a customer-facing role, communicating with all of the program’s stakeholders across various departments.

ARL is an authorized DoD SkillBridge partner and welcomes all transitioning military members to apply.

You will:

• Collaborate with Research and Development Engineers to formalize documentations and visualizations (e.g. Visio, Smart Art)
• Work directly with program leadership and customers to create, formalize, and validate documentation
• Participate in discussions related to the sponsor's modernization process and documentation of the ensuing details described
• Create a documentation repository to house all shared resources
• Maintain constant communications with key personnel as project evolves and unfolds to ensure information is being documented properly to reduce errors and increase accuracy

Additional responsibilities for higher-level position:

• Assume responsibility and accountability of program outcomes
• Create or modify systems architecture design, discovery, and validation technical artifacts
• Work for or around General Officers, SES, or Presidential appointees
• DoD 8570 IAT III or IASAE II Baseline (CISSP / CASP) and Computing Environment certification (Dell OS10, PAN-OS, Rancher, GitLab, Puppet etc.)

This position will be filled as Level 3 or 4 depending on your education and experience. Typical requirements include a Bachelor's Degree or higher in an Engineering or Science discipline; 4+ years of related experience for a Level 3. Additional experience and/or education and competencies are required for higher-level jobs.

Required skills/experience include:

• Understanding of various engineering disciplines to create technical documents and process maps
• Understand and explain complex technical concepts
• Ability to undertake multiple projects and deliver on tight deadlines
• Experience with documentation publishing software, for example: GitLab Flavored Markdown (GLFM), Confluence, Adobe, Libre Office, MS Office
• Proven technical writing skills
• Ability to set up an organized Documentation Repository in Gitlab or Confluence
• Organized with attention to detail and accuracy
• Ability to represent successful completion of work in Agile Management systems (e.g. Jira, Confluence, GitLab)
• Active DoD Top Secret clearance or higher

Preferred skills/experience include:

• DoD 8570 IAT II Baseline Certification
• DoD 8570 IAT II ‘Computing Environment’ training or certification
• Knowledge of CI/CD, DevSecOps, Cloud
• Experience with GitLab Flavored Markdown (GLFM)
• Strong internal and external research and analytical skills
• Success in an environment where various forms of communication and organizational skills were crucial to be effective
• Demonstrated ability documenting application operations and secure process automation
• Managing source code, dependencies, and artifacts with GitLab Ultimate
• Documenting:
  • DevSecOps CI/CD with GitLab Ultimate
  • Provisioning tools including Terraform, Puppet, Ansible, or related frameworks
  • Rancher Federal & RKE2
  • Highly available/fault tolerant solutions
  • Software Development experience in Python, Java, C
  • Cloud networking deployment (e.g. Software defined networking, Ingress, Egress)

Your working location will be hybrid on-site, located in San Diego, CA. This position will require periodic travel to remote locations in support of testing as part of a small team of researchers, engineers, and technologists.

ARL at Penn State is an integral part of one of the leading research universities in the nation and serves as a University center of excellence in defense science, systems, and technologies with a focus in naval missions and related areas.

You will be subject to a government security investigation, and you must be a U.S. citizen to apply. Employment with the ARL will require successful completion of a pre-employment drug screen. 

ARL is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion; we believe this is central to our success as a Department of Defense designated University Affiliated Research Center (UARC).  We are at our best when we draw on the talents of all parts of society, and our greatest accomplishments are achieved when diverse perspectives are part of our workforce.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION on ARL, visit our web site at www.arl.psu.edu.