Linda Spiller | Portfolio
Changelog posts and release notes
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Project 1: SaaS company - developer documentation
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Role: Product Documentation Owner and Technical Writer
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Type: Changelog posts for developer documentation
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Format: Online
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Tools: Written in Markdown. Published on ReadMe platform.
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Website URL
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Changelog
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Project 2: Portfolio sample
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Role: Technical Writer
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Type: Sample release notes for personal portfolio
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Format: PDF
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Tools: StackEdit. Illustrations created using Draw.io. ​​​​​
Project 1 - changelog posts
One of the projects that I encouraged the technical writing team at the SaaS I started working for in 2022 to do was to provide customers with release notes or a changelog. About a month after I started, we launched the new change log so customers and internal teams could learn about new products, features, or changes added to the developer documentation. Over 70% of the change logs published between December 2022 and September 2025 were posts that I wrote.
Changelog for SaaS
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Key tasks I did:
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Wrote and edited changelogs. Prepared screenshots for changelogs.
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Guided and trained product teams on best practices for changelogs.
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Hosted kickoff meetings to induce teams to new changelog process.
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Collaborated with product managers, engineers, and marketing to collect content needed for write changelogs. ​
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Evaluated and improved processes for requesting changelogs.
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Wrote SOP to guide product teams after I became Product Documentation Owner to speed up workflow.
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Collaborated with internal teams and external partners for final approvals.
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What I learned:
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Educating product managers why changelogs are important to customers and internal teams and when to use them is a multi-step process. Teams like kickoff meetings so they can ask questions, but SOPs guide them through the process when they need additional changelogs.
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Impact:
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Customers and sales teams were able to learn about new documentation.
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Provided a public record of new features and changes for product managers.
Project 2 - Release notes
This was an earlier portfolio project I created while pivoting from the legal field back to technical writing and technical editing. I had previously written software release notes that were shipped with product disks. I wanted to write a modern version for a mobile or website app that would be suitable for a consumer-based app used by users with a wide range of technical abilities. After researching best practices and reviewing popular release notes, I wrote this sample set of release notes for a fictitious company. (The fictitious software product was based on ideas from real products and a list of the most frequently requested features from antenna users in several online forums.) I used CodePen, StackEdit, and Draw.io to create this sample.
Release notes portfolio sample​
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Key tasks I did:
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Researched current best practices and designs for release notes. ​
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Researched similar apps and potential customer needs.
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Developed a product lifecycle and documentation plan that mirrored a possible product development schedule and used that to draft the release notes.
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Created illustrations and "screenshots."
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Included descriptions of security notes, bug fixes, and new features.
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What I learned:
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Learned great methods for making interesting but detailed release notes.
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Learned new tools and additional features in Draw.io.
Impact:
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Created an interesting portfolio sample based on best practices that I can use in other roles.