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
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
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
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.
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
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
Thanks! Sam Faktorovich [email protected] 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