About | Patrick De Pape

Professional Summary

I'm a technical documentation leader with more than 10 years of experience scaling content operations and leading distributed teams in global software organizations.

My work sits at the intersection of documentation strategy, developer experience, AI adoption, process transformation, and cross-functional collaboration with Engineering, Product, UX, Support, and Localization.

I care about documentation as a real product experience: accurate enough to earn trust, structured enough to help people move, and operationally healthy enough for teams to maintain over time.

Highlights

Led documentation teams of 12+ people, including 2 team leads.
Built and led Shopify technical writing teams responsible for developer documentation and API guides.
Owned hiring for technical writing teams at Okta and Shopify.
Reduced release note publishing time at Okta by 70%.
Led evaluation and purchase of Acrolinx for documentation quality and governance.
Expanded Shopify merchant documentation coverage to 10 languages in under six months.
Taught docs-as-code, API documentation, coding fundamentals, and visual communication at Algonquin College.

Experience

A career across docs leadership, developer platforms, and education

March 2024 to present

Technical Writer Manager, Okta

Lead a distributed documentation organization spanning writers, editors, engineers, and team leads across Okta's documentation ecosystem.

August 2017 to March 2024

Technical Writer Manager, Shopify

Built and led high-performing technical writing teams for Shopify developer documentation and API guides across a global commerce platform. Owned hiring, supported team development, improved shopify.dev documentation structure and user experience, and drove merchant documentation localization strategy.

January 2020 to May 2025

Instructor, Algonquin College

Taught docs-as-code, coding fundamentals, API documentation, content strategy, and visual communication to technical writing students.

September 2016 to August 2017

Technical Writer, Snow, formerly Embotics

Created and maintained Swagger and OpenAPI reference documentation, and partnered on technical video content for customer education.

June 2015 to September 2016

Technical Writer, Qlik Canada

Used customer behavior insights and analytics to refine documentation guidelines and lead quality initiatives.

May 2011 to June 2015

Technical Writer, Irdeto Canada

Documented internal SDKs and public REST APIs, translating complex technical concepts through close developer interviews.

Expertise

Tools, practices, and strengths

Documentation Leadership

Distributed team leadership, hiring, team development, operating models, standards, governance, and cross-functional planning.

Developer Documentation

REST, GraphQL, OpenAPI, SDKs, docs-as-code, Git, CI/CD, Markdown, MDX, HTML, and developer onboarding flows.

AI and Content Tools

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Acrolinx, automation, quality checks, content consistency, and workflow transformation.

Knowledge Platforms

Atlassian, Zendesk, Guru, Jekyll, Middleman, Gatsby, DITA, MadCap Flare, Oxygen, and Adobe Technical Communication Suite.

Programming Familiarity

Python, Java, React, Ruby, Liquid, SQL, and enough engineering context to work closely with technical teams.

Design and Media

Visual communication, diagrams, charts, illustrations, Photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut, and Adobe Premiere.

Education

Technical Writer post-graduate certificate

Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology, 2011

Honors B.A., Classical Studies and English

University of Ottawa, 2009

D.E.C. Liberal Arts

Heritage College, 2005

Technical documentation leadership grounded in product, people, and systems thinking.