Technical Writer (CBP)

Agile Defense•Ashburn, VA

7d•Onsite

About The Position

Agile Defense is seeking a Technical Writer to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This role involves creating and maintaining essential documentation for continuous operations across various ports of entry, Border Patrol stations, and the Air and Marine Operations Center. The technical writer will collaborate with network, cloud, security, and field deployment engineers to transform their knowledge into usable documentation and manage federal review processes. The position requires an understanding that systems will change, necessitating a focus on revision rather than completion, and the ability to extract information from busy engineers. Success in this role is measured by the ability to identify critical documents, map existing documentation against program requirements, reduce the time engineers spend answering repetitive questions, ensure documentation is current and easily searchable, and successfully navigate the federal review process for contractually required deliverables. The goal is to establish a documentation practice that keeps pace with system changes, making updates an integral part of the change process and ensuring content remains accurate and accessible.

Requirements

Documented technical systems you were not an expert in, and can describe how you got up to speed.
Worked on a federal program and know in practice what handling controlled information requires.
Built documentation standards that outlasted your own involvement.
Gotten busy engineers to contribute to documentation without having any authority over them.
Hold an active CBP BI, a fitness determination at another DHS component, or an active DoD clearance.
Work fluently in Markdown, Confluence, SharePoint, and a standard document toolchain.
A portfolio of documents people actually used.

Nice To Haves

Active CBP Background Investigation (CBP BI) and EOD strongly preferred.
Candidates who do not hold an active CBP BI can begin processing for one.

Responsibilities

Work with network, cloud, security, and field deployment engineers to turn their knowledge into documentation people use.
Carry the program's required deliverables through federal review.
Identify which documents people actually use and which they have quietly stopped trusting.
Map what exists against what the program is required to produce.
Stop maintaining documentation that nobody reads.
Cut the time engineers spend answering the same question twice by making information findable.
Ensure new team members can reach useful work without extensive one-on-one guidance.
Ensure a search for a current procedure returns the current version.
Get deliverables through review without a rework cycle.
Ensure documents required by the contract arrive complete and on schedule.
Ensure reviewers focus on substance rather than format and completeness.
Ensure handling and marking requirements are correct before a document leaves the team.
Establish a documentation practice that keeps up with a system that changes.
Ensure updating the document is part of making the change rather than an afterthought.
Make stale content visible as stale rather than quietly wrong.
Create templates and standards that other people follow, so quality does not depend on who wrote it.