Senior Technical Content Designer (API)

As one of the leaders and change drivers in programmatic advertising, The Trade Desk is transforming the way we monetize and consume content. Our industry is complicated, but we don’t believe our platform should be. The UX team at The Trade Desk is re-imagining the information experience for our partners and developers—not just writing docs, but building the content layer that enables AI agents, integration wizards, and a growing global developer ecosystem. 

As a Senior Technical Content Designer, you’ll architect and write technical content that partners and developers rely on to integrate successfully with our platform. You think in content layers (orientation, decision, implementation) and you understand that a well-structured doc isn’t just readable; it’s retrievable by an AI agent and actionable in a self-serve workflow. Your questions don’t just produce useful pages, they surface gaps in the product experience itself. 

We’re looking for a great communicator with strong technical aptitude, an information architecture mindset, and genuine intellectual curiosity. You ask hard questions, dig deep with subject matter experts, and know that the best documentation starts long before you open a text editor. You’re as comfortable shaping a content strategy or governance framework as you are writing a step-by-step integration guide. 

What You’ll Be Doing 

The Senior Technical Content Designer (API) creates technical content primarily for developers and integration partners. You'll join a high-performing technical writing team, reporting to the Senior Manager, Technical Content. Your day-to-day partners include product managers, engineers, technical account managers (TAMs), and other teams across the organization. 

• Write clear, accurate, well-organized documentation for a developer audience in Markdown and HTML, covering APIs, SDKs, integration guides, quickstarts, and workflow-oriented narratives. 

• Design content architecture across orientation, decision, and implementation layers, ensuring different types of users (advertisers, providers, sellers) can find, understand, and act without relying on a TAM. 

• Write with structure and precision that serves both human readers and AI-assisted workflows—clear information hierarchy, consistent terminology, and complete context at every entry point. 

• Define and implement conditional content and tagging strategies, including persona routing, protocol dimensions (REST vs. GraphQL), and environment conditions. 

• Update API and integration documentation in GitLab repositories using Git (branching, pull requests, merging to main). 

• Contribute to content governance frameworks by defining ownership, freshness policies, and quality standards as the platform scales across federated contributors. 

• Conduct UX and heuristic evaluations of the documentation experience; translate findings into concrete content and structural improvements. 

• Collaborate with engineering on authoring toolchain improvements: reducing page replication, improving multi-portal support, and automating reference generation. 

• Monitor and respond to user feedback to continuously improve content quality and coverage. 

• Write end-user documentation and UI copy as needed. 

Requirements 

Experience & Background 

• 7+ years of technical writing or technical content design experience 

• Proven experience documenting SDKs, RESTful APIs, and GraphQL APIs; writing integration guides and developer-facing content, including providing and maintaining code samples 

• Experience working in a docs-as-code environment using Git, GitHub, GitLab, or similar tools 
• Ability to work with Markdown, HTML, XML, CSS, or YAML to write, edit, and troubleshoot deliverables 

Content Design & Architecture 

• Familiarity with structured authoring principles: single sourcing, conditional content, content modeling, and writing for reuse 

• Understanding of how well-structured, consistently written content performs better in AI-assisted search and retrieval—and the discipline to write that way by default 

• Ability to evaluate documentation UX using established frameworks (such as heuristic evaluation, user journey analysis) and translate findings into actionable improvements 
• Experience with or strong interest in content governance: establishing standards, ownership models, and scalability frameworks in multi-contributor environments 

Writing & Communication 

• Exceptional writing, editing, and critical thinking skills: you ask hard questions of SMEs, advocate for the reader, and can tell the difference between what’s technically accurate and what’s actually useful 

• Familiarity with technical writing style guides and best practices (Microsoft Writing Style Guide, Google Developer Documentation Style Guide, or equivalent); experience applying or contributing to a team style guide 

• Ability to develop cross-functional rapport with product managers, engineers, product marketing, account managers, and other stakeholders 

• Ability to learn complex systems quickly and take responsibility for your assigned area 

• Commitment to creating high-quality, accessible developer documentation experiences 

 Tools & Workflow 

• Deep familiarity with code editors and developer tooling (Visual Studio Code or equivalent) 

• Familiarity with project management and communication tools (Jira, Confluence, Slack) 

• Experience creating technical diagrams (workflow, integration, entity) using industry-standard diagramming tools 

• Familiarity with AI tools and AI-assisted documentation workflows 

 Soft Skills 

• Self-starter with great attention to detail, strong time management, and sound decision-making 

• Ability to manage multiple projects and handle frequent context-switching 

• Comfortable working in ambiguity and advocating for content strategy decisions with cross-functional stakeholders 

 Education 

• Degree in English, Technical Writing, Computer Science, Linguistics, or equivalent experience 

 Highly Desired 

• Experience in digital advertising technology and programmatic advertising concepts 

• Familiarity with OpenAPI Specification and API testing tools (such as Postman) 

• Experience with developer portal platforms, docs-as-code pipelines, or content platform architecture 

• Familiarity with content-as-infrastructure thinking: content layering, workflow-oriented documentation, guided user journeys 

• Experience designing or auditing documentation for i18n readiness; familiarity with localization workflows or frameworks 

• Experience working with autogenerated API reference alongside authored narrative content