From Zero to Industry-Leading: Transforming Cloudflare's Documentation

The Challenge

Building a Content Foundation

When I joined Cloudflare in 2020, the company recognized that documentation would be a critical part of the customer journey. As Cloudflare scaled rapidly, leadership wanted to invest in content as a strategic asset.

At the time:

• No dedicated team: Documentation was managed ad-hoc across product teams
• No formal process: No established workflows for creating, reviewing, or maintaining content
• Limited coverage: Many products lacked comprehensive documentation

I joined to build a content organization that would treat documentation as a product—one that enables customer success and reflects Cloudflare's commitment to developer experience.

The Strategy

Content as a Product: A New Paradigm

I developed a comprehensive vision centered on one core principle: treat content as a product, not a byproduct. This meant:

I published our vision publicly to align stakeholders and build momentum:

Implementation

Building From Zero: Team, Tools, and Culture

• 2020-2021: Established vision and hired first content strategists and technical writers. Built foundational processes for content creation and review.
• 2022-2023: Scaled team to 15+ writers and strategists. Created comprehensive documentation coverage for 80+ products. Launched contributor program.
• 2024: Hired first dedicated documentation engineer. Transformed docs into a true developer tool integrated with Cloudflare products. Team grows to 25+ FTEs.
• 2025: Leading AI transformation—evolving writer roles, integrating AI tooling, reimagining content management for the AI era.

The engineering hire in 2024 was particularly transformative. This enabled us to:

• Build docs infrastructure using Cloudflare's own products (eating our own dog food)
• Create automated workflows for content deployment and quality checks
• Develop innovative features that turned docs into an interactive developer tool

Results & Impact

Quantifiable Outcomes

• Team Growth: Built organization from 0 to 25+ FTEs, including engineers, writers, and strategists
• Community Scale: 80-100 contributors per month—a mix of repeat contributors and new community members
• Repository Success: Cloudflare Docs became one of the most popular repos in the entire organization
• Developer Reach: Documentation serves 5M+ monthly developer visits
• Product Integration: Docs became integral part of developer experience, not just reference

Strategic Impact

• Enabled faster product launches with day-one documentation readiness
• Reduced support burden by empowering developers with comprehensive, searchable content
• Created culture where content quality is a competitive advantage
• Established open-source documentation as industry best practice