Season of Docs 2020 is here!

Google officially announced the launch of Season of Docs 2020 today. The timeline is posted on their website here. Technical writers can relax for now and pay attention on May 11 when the list of organizations will be announced.

I’ve written about my experience as a participant in this program last year, but here’s a brief summary on what this is.

• Season of Docs aims to match a technical writer with an open source organization so that both mutually benefit — tech writers gain valuable experience working in an open source environment, and organizations benefit from improved documentation. There are three parties involved: the technical writer, the open source organization and Google. Think of Google as a matchmaker whose goal it is to match you and then make sure you’re both enjoying the experience. Oh yeah, Google will also pay you a stipend, more on that below.

• Both technical writers and open source organizations have to apply to be in the program. The organizations go first, identifying projects for which they need documentation help. Once Google deems them worthy, the final list of successful organizations is published and interested tech writers can browse through it and note which ones they’d like to apply for. According to the timeline, Google will publish the list May 11 2020. Last year, we were allowed to apply to up to 3 organizations.

• Successful technical writers work on a project identified by the open source organization. This can be related to API documentation, or end user tutorials/guides or anything in between.

• Project duration can be standard (3 months) or long-running (6 months). Tech writers have the option of accepting a stipend for this project from Google (the same amount whether you’re in a standard or long-running one), and the amount depends on which country you’re applying from (e.g. last year, Canadian participants received $6000 USD). Note also the stipend is only paid at the end upon successful completion of the project. You don’t see any $$ during the time you work.

• The application consists of writing up a project proposal. No resumes or awkward phone calls are involved — you’re judged purely by how good your proposal is.

If you do apply this year, good luck!