Hiring Technical Writers: the Siberian Way

A talk at Write The Docs Portland (http://www.writethedocs.org/conf/na/2017/), May 16, 2017

Drop me a line:

sam.faktorovich@gmail.com
http://linkedin.com/in/sfactor
http://twitter.com/lazeez

Transcript

1. Hiring technical writers: the Siberian way Sam Faktorovich Novosibirsk, Russia
4. Novosibirsk: the Silicon Taiga
7. Programmer Technical writer Project manager
8. Number of technical writers in a company Time 1 Important evolution point 0
9. Why set up internal documentation? To improve the speed of knowledge transfer inside the company
10. Integration/architecture docs • Strictly internal! • Implementation details important for integration w/other components • Usage limitations and constraints • Design decisions and their rationales • ....
11. • How is the component built? • Why was it built this way? • Why should all this matter to you? Integration/architecture docs
12. Necessary skills for technical writers • Technical stuff • CS fundamentals (algorithms, design patterns...) • Linux specifics (processes, threads, IPC, networking...) • Knowledge of С++ (reading code is important) • Capability and willingness to write documentation
13. Necessary skills for technical writers • Technical stuff • CS fundamentals (algorithms, design patterns...) • Linux specifics (processes, threads, IPC, networking...) • Knowledge of С++ (reading code is important) • Capability and willingness to write documentation x4
14. Number of technical writers in a company Time 1 Another important evolution point 0 2 3
15. Software job market in Novosibirsk (circa 2013) • Population: 1,500,000 • 13 universities • ~500 software companies • ~1000 job openings for programmers per month
16. Tech writing job market in Novosibirsk (circa 2013) • Zero job openings for tech writers • Zero tech writers actively searching for a job • ~10 tech writers total in a 1.5M+ city • No universities producing technical communicators
17. Prior experience as a technical writer should not be required
18. Technical skills Textual skills
19. Technical skills Textual skills
20. Technical skills Textual skills
21. Technical skills Textual skills ???
22. Technical skills Textual skills
23. No prior experience as a technical writer Pre-interview writing assignment Either technical background OR good writing skills
24. Results (from 2013 to 2017) • 120 candidates (120 assignments received) • 40 interviews • 6 hires • 4 persons working as of 2017
25. Technical skills Textual skills 120 candidates total
26. Technical skills Textual skills 2 candidates, both hired 120 candidates total
27. Technical skills Textual skills
28. Technical skills Textual skills 60 candidates
29. Technical skills Textual skills 60 candidates 2 hires
30. Knowing how to write well ≠ knowing how to teach others to write well
31. Technical skills Textual skills
32. Technical skills Textual skills 60 candidates
33. Technical skills Textual skills 60 candidates 2 hires
34. Teaching technical things to non-tech people • CS fundamentals turned out to be teachable! • Lots of teaching materials publicly available (books, online courses...) • Fundamental technical knowledge is easily transferrable • 2-month crash course did the job
35. Teaching a good writer to code is easier than teaching a good coder to write
36. Technical skills Textual skills
37. Technical skills Textual skills Hire these and teach them later
38. Pre-interview assignment task • Write a medium-sized (1-2 pages) text describing a complex technical topic • Topic defined by us • 2-3 weeks to complete the task • Use any information sources you like
39. Pre-interview assignment task • Should not mimic our typical day-to-day documents • Should show the candidate’s capability to explain complex things
41. “[The] documentation must teach. You should think of your documentation as a lesson (or series of lessons) because that’s what it is.”
42. Explain the difference between HTTP and HTTPS to a non-technical owner of an e-commerce website.
43. Explain the difference between HTTP and HTTPS to a non-technical owner of an e-commerce website. Explain the difference between UTF-8 and UTF-16 to a programmer who is unaware of Unicode concepts.
44. Our team, from 2013 to 2017 Major/background Tech skills Text skills Computer Science ✓ ✓ Computer Science ✓ Physics ✓ Computer Science ✓ ✓ Computer Science ✓ ✓ Liberal Arts ✓ Mathematics ✓
45. Our team, from 2013 to 2017 Major/background Tech skills Text skills Computer Science ✓ ✓ Computer Science ✓ Physics ✓ Computer Science ✓ ✓ Computer Science ✓ ✓ Liberal Arts ✓ Mathematics ✓
46. Hiring “technical” technical writers: other approaches
47. Hiring “technical” technical writers: other approaches • Recruit your own developers to be technical writers? No • Grow the job market itself? Yes
48. Hiring “technical” technical writers: other approaches • Recruit your own developers to be technical writers? No. • Grow the job market itself? Yes
49. Hiring “technical” technical writers: other approaches • Recruit your own developers to be technical writers? No. • Grow the job market itself? Yes
50. Hiring “technical” technical writers: other approaches • Recruit your own developers to be technical writers? No. • Grow the job market itself? Yes!
51. Growing the job market • Technical writing class in one of local universities • Public lectures promoting the profession of a technical writer • Technical writing bootcamps • Corporate consulting on setting up documentation departments/processes
52. Growing the job market • 2013: Zero technical writer job openings per month • 2017: 6-10 technical writer job openings per month
53. Summary • “Technical” technical writers are rare: hire good writing talent first • Evaluate the writing talent by checking how they explain things • Teaching a good writer to code is easier than teaching a good coder to write • Grow the market: it’s beneficial for everyone
54. Thanks! Sam Faktorovich sam.faktorovich@gmail.com linkedin.com/in/sfactor @Lazeez Drop me a line if you need some advice/consultations on building a documentation team or setting up documentation processes