10 posts tagged with "Technical writing"

When hiring a technical writer not everybody searches for the same skill set. Choosing the right candidate is often more complex than simply finding somebody to deliver the currently pressing tasks.

It's fine to look for the particular skill set for the specific task, but it does point to a lack of foresight. How the role might evolve in the future, if the scope will change, or whether it will shift more towards leading and hiring others.

I find it helpful to keep a mental model of specializations within the discipline of technical writing. This helps in getting the core capabilities that most or all of these sub-specializations need to possess, so you can then test for them during the hiring process.

Working with developers in a docs-as-code environment can lead to some undesired and time-wasteful consequences.

Leadership is an exercise in endurance. Not physical—emotional. You unify the vision, translate different perspectives into a single narrative, and you do not flinch when that narrative gets challenged. You know when to push and when to say no. That is the job.

As anybody who has done it even a little bit will tell you: technical writing is mostly—not writing.

While every company has its own definitions of skills, responsibilities, and expectations it is important to understand that there are also different dimensions of these definitions. You could be looking at pure technical competencies but the position is a leadership one. In which case, you are more akin to an engineering manager than what is usually referred to as an individual contributor.

In both of those cases, it's good to have a handy resource with general, or even very specific, guidelines as to what different levels of an individually-contributing technical writer mean. Whether you manage people or are looking to take charge of your own career, the levels below cover most of the technical writing career ladder.

Whatever can be, will be.

I've always pondered our definition of human intelligence. Civilization even. A definition that I like is—our ability to manipulate our environment.

I tried this insert product so you don't have to.

There's a myriad of AI tool reviews out there. Kind of reminds me of the whole microservices hype. I swear, for about two years this buzzword was in every single meeting I attended. Now it's "AI-powered" everything. AI-powered toaster. AI-powered calendar. AI-powered AI.

Adam Savage once said that as a hobbyist, you should buy the cheapest tools you can find and use them until they break. When they break, and they will, you'll know two things: you're serious about the craft, and you now know exactly what you need. Then you buy the best tools you can afford.

This translates beautifully to technical writing.

What are the most important aspects of being a technical writer?

Sometimes, you just need to write it down.