Writers in Tech Industry

Technical Writing as a Career

Technical Writing can be a great choice for anyone who has passion for writing and has interest to learn and communicate information of the technical world—General Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Bio-medical industry, Aviation, Pharma & Drug Discovery and others into a structured format for the intended audience.

Technical Writers role existed almost in every product industry where they needed to communicate the product information to its internal stakeholders and customers as well. Everywhere either and an engineer, a product specialist, or a documentation specialist took-up this role.

The fact remains unimportant to many of the organization’s biggies that high quality documentation can make a big impact on customer satisfaction. It increases usage, gives more successful implementations, and creates better references and happier customers, which then drive more sales. It is an image-uplifting act which most of the organizations fail to realize. Good documentation can sell even product. You can have competitive advantage over your competitors of having high quality documentation.

Today, the ratio for developers and technical writers are somewhere 20 or 30:1. This is for the obvious reason if the bosses are technical person, they value that art more than anything. That also reflects the poor image one organization has toward its documentation. Organizational chart does not show a progressive look to the technical writers. Many organizations have typically failed to sustain because of the dearth of enough documented archival knowledge, which helps most of the new employees to understand the background of the product.

Although technical writer’s whole job is about communication, they are sometimes the last to hear about future development plans or last-minute changes to a release. Truth is, Tech writers are good advocates for the user, always thinking about the user's point of view and they can make valuable addition in the development of the product.

Technical writers do tend to be arguing for clarity and logic in everything from error messages to how features are implemented. But that's hard to do when you never talk to any customers. Even the customer’s feedbacks are shelved with customer support department, leaving technical writers imaginative on their own.

Technical writing is no black magic and if many feel, anyone can become, they are wrong. English is no short cut, which can be learnt in a year or two like Java or C++. This field is in nascent stage and growing horizontally in sheer numbers. Today, technical writers are joining the band wagon, but it is not too far that these writers would be evaluating and weighing their career goal in terms of their achievement on vertical ladder. Future will hold the platform where technical writers will make it big or break.