Joshua Harnden

About Joshua Harnden

I’m a longtime story producer and editor who’s spent years shaping raw, complicated material into something clear, structured, and meaningful. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with how those same skills translate into more technical and product-adjacent forms of communication — UX content, documentation, structured guides, and AI-assisted writing.This lets me expand the kinds of problems I’m able to address without creating a discontinuity with what I’ve always done and cared about: being a storyteller who likes to grapple with tricky problems.At my core, I\'m a storyteller and a problem-solver who:take something overwhelming or messy → understands what matters → expresses it clearly for a wide audience.Whether I’m building long-form narrative arcs, writing voice-over, creating story documents for teams, or crafting a clean explanation of how something works, I’m ultimately solving the same problem: helping someone understand an experience more easily.What I’ve done so far:• 20 years of story and editorial leadership across dozens of projects• Supervising Post Producer on 130+ long-form episodes (My 600-lb Life, The Hills, KUWTK, Shahs of Sunset, and an Emmy-nominated YouTube Red show)• MFA in Creative Writing; BA in English (Princeton)• Experience in AI/LLM content evaluation• Currently completing a Full-Stack Software Development certificate (UT Austin)What I’m exploring:• Clear, structured documentation• How-to guides, onboarding flows, and user-facing explanations• UX-style microcopy and interface language• Narrative systems and interactive storytelling• The ways story, structure, and clarity intersect in technical contextsI’m open to roles that use some mix of writing, structure, clarity, and collaboration — whether that’s traditional story work, content roles in tech, or anything in between. Video editing is also an extension of my writing; as an editor, your choices effectively write the final script.If you’re building something complex and want help making it understandable, human, and well-structured, I’d love to talk.

Experience

1. a i Trainer Writing & Content Evaluation

   Mercor

   Apr 2025 — Present · Austin, TX, US

   I work with AI-generated writing, evaluating model outputs. The work involves a mix of editing, pattern recognition, and helping define what “good” looks like in human-readable communication.

Education

• UCLA

  Certificate, Screenwriting

  2005 — 2006

• Princeton University

  Bachelor of Arts - BA, English

• The University of Texas at Austin

  Certificate, Full-stack Development

• Otis College of Art and Design

  Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Creative Writing

  2013 — 2015

• Phillips Academy

  High School Diploma