Swapnil Ogale
I have close to 20 years of experience in:
- Scoping and creating technical/developer content,
- Leading documentation projects,
- Managing technical writing teams, and
- Designing information architecture strategies.
Working in software engineering and product teams, I’ve created a range of technical content, including technical specifications, API documentation, user guides, content for developer portals, and implementation guides for customer solutions.
I initiated the Write the Docs community in Australia in 2016, contributed to an open source project in the Google Season of Docs in 2019, managed Redocly’s open source documentation project and mentored technical writers as part of the Google Season of Docs 2021.
Love sharing my knowledge and experiences, and have presented at technical documentation and developer conferences globally. I also mentor aspiring and transitioning technical writers through the ADPList platform.
Current role
In my role as a Technical Writer in the Prototyping and Cloud Engineering team at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Australia, my focus is on collaborating with customer engagement teams for technical storytelling, raising the bar of technical content, accelerating software engineers’ efforts with writing, and innovating on behalf of our customers. I also hold the Cloud Practioner, and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Practitioner certifications from AWS.
Skills
- Technical communication
- Technical content strategy
- Information architecture
- Product documentation
- UX Writing
- Content design and development
- Implementation guides
- Online help
- User guides
- Release notes
- Technical specifications
- Developer docs
- Wikis
- API and SDK documentation
- Error messages
- Product content
- Developer Portals
- Markdown
- Microsoft Office
- Help Authoring (Madcap Flare, RoboHelp)
- Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
- oXyGen XML Editor
- Redoc
- Wikis
- Confluence
- Wordpress
- AsciiDoc
- Amazon Bedrock
- Amazon SageMaker
- Sitecore
- Miro
- Figma
- JIRA
- Swagger
- Git
- Analytics
- Asana
- Postman
- Open source documentation
- Technical community management
- Conference wrangler
Documentation Projects
This page contains examples of technical content I have managed and delivered over different software/IT projects, broken down by types of content deliverables.
Note: Click each deliverable to read more about the context, problems, my contributions, and impact delivered through the project.
Technical implementation guides
Worked in the Solutions Engineering team to plan, manage, create and deliver technical content for customer solutions.
Product documentation and information architecture
Working as a Technical Writer Advocate, contributed to, and managed product docs. Led information architecture and content strategy projects.
Technical specifications and API documentation
Managed technical content for Australian distributed energy initiatives. Documented technical specifications, API design docs, user guides, and reference information.
Product marketing blogs
Wrote monthly blog posts capturing product enhancements, new features and documentation updates, and company news.
Online Help
Scoped, planned, and created Online Help (100+ topics), What's New, Release Notes for a project management software for architects and engineers.
Developer Portals
Set up a doc workflow process and toolchain, wrote API documentation, and designed mockups of partner and developer sites for a recruitment software organisation.
Process documentation and work instructions
Led a team of technical writers instrumental in deploying technical documentation to over 5 operational teams, and across 150+ users.
SDK documentation
Freelancing with a fintech startup, I reviewed and created documentation for SDK developers to integrate their iOS and Android devices with the SDK product.
Open Source and Community contributions
A collection of efforts to which I contributed, but did not create. I am always keen to give back to open source through documentation, collaboration, and volunteering with like-minded people.
Note: Click each deliverable to read more about the summary, scope, and key learnings and deliverables for these projects.
Write the Docs Australia - Community management
Initiated the Write the Docs community in Australia in 2016. Organise meetup events across Australia and chair the annual conference since 2017.
Redocly (Google Season of Docs) - Management and mentoring
Set up and managed Redocly's participation in Google Season of Docs 2021, and mentored technical writers working on our open source products.
Geonetwork
Participated in Google Season of Docs 2019, and contributed to the GeoNetwork open source project.
Kubeflow - Documentation sprint
Presentations and publications
While I am not a natural speaker, I’ve got over my fears and grown to love public speaking.
This section is a collection of my presentations/talks and publications, about my experiences in Technical Writing. I’ve also been a part of a couple of documentation podcasts, and love organising and talking at meetups.
Talk - DDD Melbourne 2025: The Lost Art of good README documentation
Talk - TechCommNZ 2024 (Workshop): Building an online portfolio in 90 minutes
Talk - TechCommNZ 2024: Thank God, You're Here
Book - Technical Writing Process, 2nd Edition
Article - Redocly for technical writers
Podcast - Embrace Discomfort and Challenge the Status Quo for Advocacy and Visibility
Talk - APIDays Australia 2021: The secret sauce behind successful APIs
Podcast - Tech Writer Advocacy and Managing Write the Docs Australia
Talk - Write the Docs Portland 2021: Putting the tech in technical writer
Talk - TechCommNZ 2019: Making content sustainable
Talk - Madworld 2018: What's the deal with Release notes?
Talk - Write the Docs Prague 2016: When bad screenshots happen to good writers
Article - The Art of the Review
Article - How API docs became my silver lining
Podcast - Write the Docs Podcast
Article - Justifying the use of Single Sourcing
Experience
Technical Writer
Part of a Centre of Excellence team focusing on collaborating with customer engagement teams for technical storytelling, raising the bar of technical content, accelerating software engineers' efforts with writing, and innovating on behalf of our customers.
Mentor
Mentor aspiring and transitioning technical writers through the ADPList platform.
Technical Writer Advocate
In this first of its kind hybrid role, I worked with the community of technical writers advocating for a docs-like-code approach and offering them the skills and know-how to make it happen, along with documenting our products.
Senior Technical Writer (Contract)
Planned, designed and created online documentation for AEMO internal and external portals across gas and electricity market applications.
Senior Technical Writer (Contract)
Set up content design for onboarding and developer platforms. Created API documentation for recruitment partners and developers.
Senior Technical Writer (Contract)
Developed and managed product and technical documentation including API content for developer portal and B2B users.
Technical Writer (Contract)
Documented processes, procedures and other content for FedRAMP security project.
Lead Technical Writer (Contract)
Led a technical writing team documenting business processes for network operations and performance teams.
Technical Writer
Created product content (Help, Release Notes, Feature Guides) for a student housing software
Technical Writer (Contract)
Worked with data warehouse development team to plan and deliver developer guides and reference material.
Team Lead Technical Writer (Contract)
Led and mentored 2 technical writers working on a Smart Metering project.
Technical Writer (Contract)
Planned and created process documentation for a student management system implementation.
National Procedures Officer (Contract)
Scoped, designed and created a National Procedures Manual.
Documentation Specialist (Contract)
User content, Process documentation, Policy writing, Information Architecture projects for Australia Post, Alex Fraser Group, ANZ, Toyota Australia, DownerEDI Works, Elders Australia, BUPA.
Technical Writer
Created online help (HTML and Web) for share registry desktop and web applications.
Technical Writer
Developed context-sensitive online help for a radiology information system.