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Technical Storyteller

Blacksmith

New York, NYJob$150–180K/yrPosted 3w agoVerified open 5 days ago

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At a glance

Compensation
$150–180K/yr
Location
New York, NY
Work Authorization
Not specified

Job overview

Blacksmith is hiring a Technical Storyteller. Blacksmith builds high‑performance CI infrastructure and operates a global fleet of bare‑metal machines, serving thousands of companies with fast, cost‑effective GitHub Actions execution, and is expanding into a broader platform for agent sandboxes and background coding agents.

Key focus areas include Build and run the content engine to deliver high‑quality technical content on a reliable cadence, Design launch narratives and playbooks for new products and features, and Interview engineering teams and craft compelling stories that showcase their CI improvements.

Important skills include Github, CockroachDB, Distributed Systems, Content Engine Building, Launch Design, and Customer Storytelling. Preferred (not required): Continuous Integration, Ceph, Marketing Strategy, and Infrastructure.

Skills & qualifications

RequiredNice to have

Skills

GithubCockroachDBDistributed SystemsContinuous IntegrationCephMarketing StrategyInfrastructureAdvertisingContent Engine BuildingLaunch DesignCustomer StorytellingTechnical Content CreationDocumentationCredible Technical PresentationStory Extraction From EngineersWriting With Point of ViewHacker News TrendsX TrendsDeveloper Social ChatterAutonomyVideo ContentYouTube ContentChangelog ManagementConference Talks

Qualifications

5+ Years Writing for Technical AudiencePublished Work That Traveled

Benefits

Medical Insurance
Vision Insurance
Dental Insurance
401(k) Match
Paid Time Off
Parental Leave

Full job description

About Blacksmith

  • We started by building infrastructure to run CI workloads really fast. Our first product helps companies run GitHub Actions substantially faster and cheaper by owning and operating our own global fleet of bare-metal machines rather than renting generic cloud VMs.

  • Today, we orchestrate tens of millions of Firecracker VMs each week, running CI for 5,000+ companies and hitting ~$50M in ARR in 2.5 years. We've more than 5x’d our revenue since the start of 2026.

  • We operate thousands of bare-metal machines across multiple regions, regularly schedule 100k+ vCPUs concurrently, and run a petabyte-scale Ceph cluster that we manage ourselves.

  • We’ve raised $58.5M from Seed to Series B, led by Google Ventures (GV) & Peak XV Partners, and we’re intentionally building a small, but exceptional team.

  • Blacksmith was founded by a team with deep systems and scaling experience, including building search/ads infrastructure at Faire, and operating large distributed systems at Cockroach Labs. Our GTM is led by Jon Boyer, formerly Head of Sales at Zapier.

  • We're now extending the same CI infrastructure into a broader platform: running agent sandboxes at scale and building our own background coding agent on top of it.

What you'll do

  • Build and run the content engine. We are constantly working on complex infrastructure problems and have a lot of features to launch this year, but there's no machinery yet for turning launches and engineering work into content on a reliable cadence. Today that overhead falls on engineers and founders, which means it often doesn't happen at all. You'll build the machine and own the cadence, so a regular stream of high-quality technical content ships.

  • Design how we launch. We're shipping several 0-to-1 products and features this year and each needs a narrative: the announcement, the docs-adjacent explainers, the demos. You'll work closely with the Product team to build up this playbook and reduce the overhead with every launch.

  • Turn customers into stories. We have engineering teams who cut their CI times by an order of magnitude. Find those stories, interview these teams and write compelling content that other engineers will naturally draw parallels to in their own work.

  • Set the bar for technical content in this category. Deep dives, benchmarks, teardowns, comparisons, the occasional argumentative essay. Things that get to the front page of Hacker News on merit.

  • Extend past the blog. Video, YouTube, docs, changelog, conference talks, the company account. Whatever format the story actually needs.

You're a good fit if you

  • Have 5+ years writing for a technical audience - developer media, technical content marketing, DevRel, or engineering-adjacent journalism.

  • Have published work that traveled: pieces that hit the front page of Hacker News, threads that got quoted, posts engineers send each other, or an audience you built yourself. We will ask for links to get to better know your style of writing.

  • Understand technical concepts deeply enough to present them credibly. You don't need to be an engineer, but you're genuinely curious about what we're building and the wider market.

  • Can pull a story out of engineers who don't think of themselves as storytellers. You can read a design doc or a pull request and come out with a thesis, and you ask questions to build a content piece.

  • Write with a point of view. We'd rather publish something arguable than something safe.

  • Are very online: you follow the right channels, know what's moving through Hacker News, X, and developer social chatter, and catch things early. You have instincts about what will work and what won't.

  • Work with autonomy. There's no manager, no brief, no existing calendar. You'll decide what's worth writing.

Compensation and benefits

  • Medical, Vision, and Dental insurance.

  • Competitive base + equity.

  • 401k match.

  • Unlimited PTO.

  • Annual offsite.

  • Early-exercise stock options

  • 12 weeks fully paid parental leave (US)

You've read the whole posting — now see how you match it.