Engineer-journalist building editorial programmes and messaging for breakthrough science and technology companies.
I’m a systems engineer by training and journalist by practice (WIRED, Smithsonian Magazine). I help companies transform complex innovations into narratives for well-defined audiences. Previously, I’ve led projects for Stripe, Ginkgo Bioworks, Every and Pipe, companies where storytelling and technical accuracy perform a crucial role.
I’m currently writing my debut space science nonfiction book, based on reporting.
Problem: Every wanted to know whether AI-in-science was a vertical worth building, and what it should publish, if so.
Solution: I researched thirteen scientific domains and recommended seven stories. The deliverable was a strategy their editors can commission from: an editorial frame that captures ongoing practice changes in the sciences as a result of AI, named practitioners, fully built pitches, and routes to access.
Problem: This post-IPO synthetic biology company needed to communicate synthetic biology, a field so advanced that it’s often indistinguishable from science fiction (coding DNA?), to policymakers, investors, potential customers.
Solution: I led the strategy and development of Grow Press, Ginkgo’s in-house nonfiction publisher, from concept. Working with their Sociotechnical Studio, a team of scientists, designers and writers, I defined what the Press was for, its voice and readership based on the company’s goals and market analysis. Then, I built the first six titles across three categories to reach them. Alongside came the operating model to publish these books (defining budgeting, team structure, timelines) and the author experience the Press would offer.
Problem: This rapidly growing fintech startup needed to establish a strong writing culture for its all-remote tech teams, and also to build its reputation as a place where developer talent thrives.
Solution: I worked closely with the engineering leadership to establish what the blog was for and who would stand behind it. From there I built the editorial process behind Deploy, their engineering blog, defining goals and voice, targeted readership, and an editorial calendar that carried every piece from pitch to published. None of the engineers who wrote for Deploy had published before, so the work was finding their ideas and going with them through outline, draft and revision.
Problem: This late-stage fintech powers much of the financial infrastructure of the internet, and wanted to build its leadership in software development practices.
Solution: I developed an internationally focused vertical for Increment, their software magazine (the “New Yorker for geeks”, as Kara Swisher called it), publishing stories of technological impact from regions and communities the industry rarely covered. Over the magazine’s final two years I wrote ten pieces for it and built two recurring formats: case studies reporting from inside the engineering teams of companies including Slack, Google, Automattic, Zapier and Freshworks, and Q&As with specialists such as Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister, on the open-source platform behind her country’s open government, and David Woods, a founder of resilience engineering. For Increment, I also worked as contributing editor.
Problem: This late-stage fintech wanted to lead in nurturing the overall internet ecosystem that it helps support by freely sharing ideas for tech, scientific, and economic progress.
Solution: For Stripe Press, I worked as editor, directly with the Head of Publishing, to find and assess the books the Press should print. I also researched a new edition of The Scientists Speak, a 1946 anthology of scientists writing about their own fields, reviewing every essay in the original, proposing a structure for a modern edition, and finding ninety-five scientists who might write for it. Alongside this I built the marketing plans that help books find their readers, for published titles including Scientific Freedom, Working in Public, and Scaling People.
Problem: In 2017, I reported and wrote a narrative nonfiction piece for WIRED, which was one of its most-read of the year. It told the story of three women who helped India complete a Mars mission, and it had to be expanded into a book for a science-curious general readership.
Solution: I’m writing Glass Skies, a narrative nonfiction book based on 100+ interviews and years of ground reporting, balancing human interest with scientific accuracy across a story that runs from 60s small-town India to the near present. To report it, I negotiated the first research access ISRO had granted a writer in fifty years, and moved to south India to do the work. (Literary agent: Anna Sproul-Latimer, Neon Literary.)
For startup founders and leadership teams who need to articulate their technology, to investors, potential hires, customers, or the public, with precision and resonance.
My approach comes from working with scientists who are wary of marketers, including years of earning trust with researchers at the Indian Space Research Organisation, which has historically been media shy, to write an entirely reported nonfiction book based upon their work. I believe in a collaborative process, where I get into the weeds with you, ask you (basic and deep!) questions about your tech, and help you craft messaging for different audiences.
Thereafter, I help you come up with ways to tell the story in different ways to the different people you want to reach. We can explain your tech to those with no prior knowledge, we can tell the story about why it matters, and we can craft a version for industry experts, based on what you need.
The deliverable is a working messaging document, something your team can use to power decks, hiring materials, press conversations, and website copy.
For companies with a specific, defined content challenge. This might be thought leadership pieces or team profiles, technical case studies, or a content strategy for a new audience.
If you are exploring specific content ideas, like a series of profiles of your team or thought leadership, technical case studies, or you’re exploring whether it’s time to invest in editorial infrastructure, I can pitch in. For such projects, I like to start by understanding whom we want to reach, why us, why now. I then take the project through strategy and execution.
Previous work: Every’s AI-in-science editorial strategy; Stripe’s Increment magazine and Stripe Press.
For companies investing in building their editorial infrastructure over time. These are projects where the need isn’t a single series but sustained editorial leadership as the company and its work evolve.
This engagement is for companies that want storytelling infrastructure built sustainably over time: defining a brand voice, a content and storytelling program that spans various purposes and audiences, and a thinking partner who understands the technology well enough to represent it accurately at every stage. I work with you closely and lead editorial strategy, production, execution, and evolution over time.
Previous work: Pipe’s technical brand and blog; Ginkgo Bioworks’ push into nonfiction publishing.
If any of this sounds like your problem, write to me at ipsita@ipsitaagarwal.com.