Senior Technical Editor

Senior Technical Editor

N4 Solutions, LLC offers our public and private sector clients the collective intellectual knowledge, expertise, and experience of our company and associates to help our customers evaluate, collaborate, innovate, and create business, technology, and scientific solutions that enable them to accomplish their mission and achieve organizational objectives. With the growth of the company, we are seeking a highly motivated, organized, and people-focused technical editing professional to join our team on a part-time basis. The successful candidate will work in a high-paced and rewarding work environment.

Job Description/Duties:

The Senior Technical Editor will provide senior-level editorial leadership and quality oversight for complex technical documents, publications, reports, manuals, web content, and related communications products. This role is responsible for managing the editorial process from initial draft through final publication, supervising and mentoring editorial staff, ensuring compliance with Federal and agency style requirements, and transforming complex technical and engineering information into clear, authoritative, publication-ready content. The Senior Technical Editor will work independently and collaboratively with researchers, engineers, writers, designers, program staff, and other stakeholders to ensure that all deliverables meet the highest standards of accuracy, consistency, readability, and quality.

Editorial Leadership & Quality Assurance

• Oversee the editorial lifecycle for high-visibility and technically complex publications and communications products.
• Establish and maintain editorial quality standards across multiple concurrent projects and product lines.
• Review and edit technical documents for clarity, consistency, grammar, punctuation, organization, logical flow, style, formatting, and overall readability.
• Perform substantive editing, copyediting, proofreading, rewriting, and reorganization as needed to improve the quality and effectiveness of content.
• Serve as a final editorial quality gate for complex or high-profile deliverables before submission or publication.
• Ensure consistent application of editorial standards across large-scale programs, recurring publications, reports, manuals, and other communications products.
• Implement and maintain rigorous quality control and version-control practices throughout document production.
• Identify recurring editorial or quality issues and recommend process improvements to reduce errors and improve consistency.

Technical Editing, Fact-Checking & Content Validation

• Review technically complex material and transform raw data, engineering terminology, and specialized subject matter into clear and authoritative communications.
• Verify technical accuracy and completeness in coordination with subject matter experts and technical reviewers.
• Conduct fact-checking, reference checking, citation review, and validation of product names, trademarks, copyrights, and other supporting information.
• Ensure that tables, charts, figures, schematics, references, and technical data are accurately integrated with the narrative.
• Identify inconsistencies, unsupported statements, gaps, or ambiguities in technical content and coordinate resolution with authors and subject matter experts.
• Maintain the integrity and intended meaning of technical information while improving readability and accessibility for target audiences.
• Review and reconcile comments from multiple reviewers and ensure approved technical changes are incorporated correctly.

Federal Style, Publishing & Compliance

• Ensure documents and publications adhere to applicable Federal and agency editorial standards, including the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) Style Manual and other required style guides.
• Apply and enforce established organizational and program-specific editorial requirements across all products.
• Review references, citations, permissions, and copyrighted content for completeness and compliance.
• Coordinate with publication, design, web, accessibility, and program staff to ensure final products are publication ready.
• Support electronic and web publishing by ensuring content is properly structured, formatted, and prepared for downstream production.
• Ensure editorial products support applicable Section 508 accessibility requirements in coordination with accessibility and production staff.
• Maintain awareness of evolving Federal publishing, editorial, and accessibility standards relevant to assigned work.

Document Lifecycle & Production Management

• Manage the full editorial lifecycle of assigned documents from initial outline or draft through review, revision, approval, and final publication.
• Coordinate multiple rounds of editing and review among authors, technical experts, program personnel, designers, publication staff, and other stakeholders.
• Establish editorial schedules, priorities, review sequences, and quality checkpoints for assigned products.
• Track document status, comments, revisions, approvals, and outstanding actions through completion.
• Maintain disciplined version control across complex, multi-reviewer publications.
• Coordinate with publication and project management personnel to ensure products are completed on schedule and meet customer requirements.
• Provide timely status updates and identify schedule, quality, or technical risks that could affect delivery.

Staff Leadership, Mentoring & Coordination

• Provide editorial leadership, guidance, and oversight to technical editors, writers, and other communications staff.
• Assign or recommend editorial work based on workload, technical complexity, priorities, and staff capabilities.
• Mentor junior and mid-level editorial staff in substantive editing, copyediting, fact-checking, style application, and quality assurance.
• Review work performed by other editorial staff and provide constructive feedback to improve consistency and quality.
• Develop or support editorial procedures, templates, checklists, job aids, and other tools that standardize production practices.
• Collaborate closely with writers, graphic designers, publication coordinators, web specialists, and project managers to support an integrated production process.

Stakeholder & Subject Matter Expert Coordination

• Work directly with researchers, engineers, authors, technical experts, and program staff to clarify content and resolve editorial or technical issues.
• Conduct or support interviews and consultations with subject matter experts when needed to verify technical information or fill content gaps.
• Explain editorial recommendations and requirements clearly and professionally to authors and reviewers.
• Coordinate competing review comments and facilitate resolution of complex editorial issues.
• Support communication between technical and creative teams to ensure final products accurately reflect the intended research, engineering, or policy message.

Education/Experience/Expertise Requirement:

• Master's degree in English, Journalism, Communications, a technical discipline, or a closely related field.
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant professional experience in technical editing, publishing, communications, or related work, including supervisory and project management experience.
• Demonstrated experience overseeing editorial processes for complex, high-stakes technical documentation.
• Expert-level command of the U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual and strong knowledge of professional editorial standards.
• Extensive experience with substantive editing, copyediting, proofreading, rewriting, fact-checking, and reference verification.
• Demonstrated ability to edit highly technical or scientific information while preserving accuracy and meaning.
• Experience managing the full lifecycle of documents from draft through final publication, including electronic and web publishing.
• Experience supervising, mentoring, or providing quality oversight to editorial staff.
• Strong knowledge of document production, version control, review workflows, and quality assurance.
• Ability to manage multiple complex editorial projects and competing priorities concurrently.
• Excellent written communication, analytical, organizational, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to identify technical, editorial, formatting, and consistency issues.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with technical subject matter experts, researchers, writers, designers, web personnel, program leadership, and external stakeholders.
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
• Demonstrated proficiency with Microsoft Office and standard document review and publishing applications.
• Ability to meet customer site and program requirements.
• U.S. Citizenship required

Preferred Education/Experience/Expertise:

• Experience supporting FHWA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, or another Federal agency.
• Experience editing transportation, engineering, research, scientific, or other technically complex publications.
• Transportation experience, particularly in highway and surface transportation, which FHWA identifies as preferred for this role.
• Experience managing editorial production for technical reports, research publications, manuals, magazines, newsletters, web products, or similar Federal communications.
• Experience applying Federal publishing standards and coordinating with legal, public affairs, accessibility, design, and web review functions.
• Experience with Section 508 accessibility requirements as they relate to electronic publications and web content.
• Experience developing and implementing editorial quality control procedures, style guides, templates, checklists, or standard operating procedures.