In my last post, I wrote about how Technical Writing has evolved as technology progressed. I briefly touched on the history to focus on the resume, but want to add more to describe my niche as a technical writer.
The Types of Technical Writing
Learn more about my relevant experience for each form of technical writing in the 2020s. I’ve broken down what I’ve learned from writing on various subjects with subject matter experts (SMEs) into a broad classification. I created this classification based on the sheer difference in jobs shown on LinkedIn.
Software Writing
When focusing on software, writers write documentation for tech products. These are commonly in the form of user manuals, API documentation, and release notes. Putting it into the realm of software, these user manuals are specialized for developers with tutorials towards integration with third party tools, initialization as user guides, and developer documentation for APIs. Generally, software focuses on the SDLC with critical skills being Cloud Deployment and the tools and frameworks used in Full-Stack Engineering. My experience with Software Writing has shown that demos are the favored method of knowledge sharing citing large pages of dedicated documentation.
Web Products
Web focuses on web-based products, such as help documentation, tutorials, and marketing materials. My background in Frontend and popular web frameworks such as React and the classic HTML/CSS/JavaScript gives me the skills to own web development/frontend engineering tasks. Bur for writing specifically, it requires less technical background than software as sometimes there’s no code. This choice is intentional, in favor of tailoring to a general audience focusing on product documentation. Writing for the web will involve working with less technical audiences as end-users may be from a marketing or sales background looking for the next tool to boost productivity at their company.
Hardware Manuals
As IoT and embedded systems become common to households and consumer life, hardware is another niche that contrasts software writing. This role involves writing documentation for hardware products, such as user manuals, installation guides, and troubleshooting guides. Depending on the IoT and hardware, it requires a deep understanding of how signals work with an audience focusing on R&D. Argueably, I believe it’s the most profitable form of technical writing due to the level of credentials and experience their jobs ask for. You need to be a mix of (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) EECS with R&D experience to pass these intense interviews.
Technical Marketing
The most cross-discipline form, and oldest form of technical writing is marketing. I started off as this role and researched and wrote about a variety of publicly avaialble technical content. Oftentimes, it would be separate from a engineering team, and focus on top-of-funnel efforts towards writing blog posts, white papers, and case studies. In addition, you learn more about how growth works in a company and the metrics are focused on numbers unlike engineering where cycles are more critical.
Skillsets
Let’s break down these roles into what a skills section should entail. From my experience, each role is as follows for Languages, Frameworks, Concepts, and Stakeholders. If I were to list everything possible it would be far too long, so I’ve shorted the list to focus on my skills.
Software
Software is heavily middle-ware and backend emphasizing APIs and database technologies.
- Languages: Python, SQL
- Frameworks: Flask, Django, PosgresSQL/MySQL, Firebase
- Concepts: APIs, REST, Databases, Client-Server
- Stakeholders: Developers, Data Engineers, Practitioners
Web design
Web focuses on being able to own the documentation sites, requiring some frontend knowledge and UX design.
- Languages: JavaScript, HTML, CSS
- Frameworks: React, Node, Bootstrap
- Concepts: Design, Visualizations, Dashboards
- Stakeholders: Product and Marketing, maybe Design or Sales.
Hardware IoT
Hardware requires in-depth knowledge of low-level lanaguages to understand the codebase and ability to switch gears quickly.
- Languages: C/C++, GoLang, Rust
- Frameworks: Valgrind, Raspian/Linux OS
- Concepts: IoT, Embedded, Logic gates (Discrete Math), Cache
- Stakeholders: Electrical and Embedded Engineers.
Content Marketing
Marketing branches outside of common engineering tools and focuses on blogging platforms and reader research through data-driven decision making as well as define metrics for success.
- Languages: Markdown, XML, HTML
- Frameworks: Ahrefs, Amplitude, Google Analytics
- Concepts: Marketing SEO, Data Analytics, Programatic SEO
- Stakeholders: Marketing and Sales, maybe Engineers.
Honorable Mentions
Shared
Across all the job positions, these are core skills that remains as a must-have regardless of niche for a technical writer.
- Language: English, Markdown
- Tools: Git, Jira, Confluence
- Concepts: Edit, Review, Agile Scrum, Kanban
- Stakeholders: Executives
Competitive
Standing out among candidates will be critical to landing that job. I believe the competitive expanding market will soon require another skill that all Technical Writers should be familiar with. Technical writers need to present their work, and being able to spin up a demo in seconds rather than minutes or days helps with making replicatable demos. For that reason, I suggest learning Docker, then Kubernetes to stand out and Helm for easy metric tracking.
- Language: GoLang.
- Tools: Docker, Kubernetes, Helm
- Concepts: Distributed Systems
What’s Next
Now that I have a new resume, categorized my niches, and disected the job descriptions, it’s time to look for relationships for the Cover Letter. With an established relationship, I plan to enhance the site’s search capabilities to help visitors explore the blogs in tandem with my stories.