At Elastic, we help organizations, their employees, and their customers accelerate the results that matter. 

With solutions in Enterprise Search, Observability, and Security, we help enhance customer and employee search experiences, keep mission-critical applications running smoothly, and protect against cyber threats. Delivered wherever data lives, in one cloud, across many clouds, or on-prem, Elastic enables more than 50% of the Fortune 500, and 17,000+ customers including Netflix, Uber, Slack, and Microsoft, to achieve new levels of success at scale and on a single platform. Learn more at elastic.co.


Elastic

Elastic is the leading platform for search-powered solutions.

Elastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time, using all their data, at scale — unleashing the potential of businesses and people. The Elastic Search AI Platform, used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500, brings together the precision of search and the intelligence of AI to enable everyone to accelerate the results that matter. By taking advantage of all structured and unstructured data — securing and protecting private information more effectively — Elastic’s complete, cloud-based solutions for search, security, and observability help organizations deliver on the promise of AI.

What is The Role:

We are looking for 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. You'll be the champion of the new-user experience, working in lockstep with others to turn technical capability into user success.

Our docs team helps shape the evolution of our products and services. We care deeply about giving you ownership of what you’re working on. We believe Elastic achieves greatness when you are free to pursue your ideas and are surrounded and challenged by your peers.

What You Will Be Doing:

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.

What You Bring:

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.

Additional Information - We Take Care of Our People:

As a distributed company, diversity drives our identity. Whether you’re looking to launch a new career or grow an existing one, Elastic is the type of company where you can balance great work with great life. Your age is only a number. It doesn’t matter if you’re just out of college or your children are; we need you for what you can do.

We strive to have parity of benefits across regions, and while regulations differ from place to place, we believe taking care of our people is the right thing to do.

Competitive pay based on the work you do here and not your previous salaryHealth coverage for you and your family in many locationsAbility to craft your calendar with flexible locations and schedules for many rolesGenerous number of vacation days each yearIncrease your impact - We match up to $2000 (or local currency equivalent) for financial donations and serviceUp to 40 hours each year to use toward volunteer projects you loveEmbracing parenthood with a minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave

Security & Privacy Responsibilities: Take ownership of protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of organizational data and systems by following applicable privacy and security policies, standards, and procedures. Ensure that all individual contributions follow Elastic’s Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF). Proactively participate in mandatory role-based training to ensure personal technical execution consistently aligns with the highest standards of data protection, data privacy, and system resilience.

Different people approach problems differently. We need that. Elastic is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating an inclusive culture that celebrates different perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law, ordinance or regulation.

We welcome individuals with disabilities and strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all individuals. To request an accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email candidate_accessibility@elastic.co. We will reply to your request within 24 business hours of submission.

Applicants have rights under Federal Employment Laws and can view the following posters linked below:

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Poster

Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) Poster

Elasticsearch develops and distributes technology and information that is subject to U.S. and other countries’ export controls and licensing requirements for individuals who are located in or are nationals of the following sanctioned countries and regions: Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, or Russia, including the Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia (The Crimea region of Ukraine, The Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), The Luhansk People's Republic (LNR), Kherson or Zaporizhzhia). If you are located in or are a national of one of the listed countries or regions, an export license may be required as a condition of your employment in this role. Please note that national origin and/or nationality do not affect eligibility for employment with Elastic.

Please see here for our Privacy Statement.

Different people approach problems differently. We need that. Elastic is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law, ordinance or regulation.

We welcome individuals with disabilities and strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all individuals. To request an accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email candidate_accessibility@elastic.co We will reply to your request within 24 business hours of submission.

Applicants have rights under Federal Employment Laws, view posters linked below:

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Poster; Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Poster; and Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) Poster.

Please see here for our Privacy Statement.

Principal Technical Writer - Customer Onboarding

What the job involves