[chipotle_coyote]

Yes, user docs are customer-facing, but the problem is that if they're under the control of marketing, then documentation priorities will be set as if they are marketing materials. And, possibly worse, a writer who works in marketing will by and large be treated by engineers like, well, somebody who works in marketing. (Without getting into sordid details, I'm speaking from personal experience of having been a tech writer under engineering at one company and under marketing at another.)

[johnonolan]

That's cool, but we literally don't have a marketing department. So whoever gets hired will report directly to me, no matter what their title is.

The primary function of the role is to do writing, not engineering - and the success of the role will be measured in terms of marketing, not engineering - so to me the title we went with makes the most sense. I can definitely understand the discussion here though :)

[justinclift]

> the success of the role will be measured in terms of marketing

Err... trying to grok that, and failing. Are you ok to flesh out what you mean? :)

[justinclift]

> ... then documentation priorities will be set as if they are marketing materials.

Thank you. This is exactly my point.

The only way making them a function of "marketing" makes sense, is if the leadership of Ghost view user docs as something primarily to bring in (new) sales.

As a person who has often done implementation roles in their career, having to rely on docs written by "marketing" people rather than engineers is generally a lousy experience. :(