"I’ve developed the impression that, as humanists in tech, technical writers are constantly subjected to the pull of two separate forces. One is eminently technological, embodied by the Developer-Maker; the other is communicational, represented by the Writer-Storyteller. I see you muttering “Woz & Jobs” in glee while reading about those profiles, and you wouldn’t be too far off, despite how trite those stereotypes have become over time. For the sake of the discussion, let’s assume that they’ve always been there.
If you represented both forces in a diagram, you’d get something like the following: the Developer strain diverging from the initial trunk towards more engineering-colored shades of writing, and the second strain, the Writer’s, moving towards meaning and connection and away from explaining buttons and menus. As UIs become more self-explanatory, and coding more accessible, writers pursue deeper specialization, and so the tech writer becomes an API writer and then a Docs Engineer, for example.
I think it’s still entirely possible to remain at the center as a full-stack writer, but it’s becoming harder due to the way job titles convey expectations and foster teamwork. It’s easier for tech writers to embed with engineers if they carry the engineer sobriquet, as it’s simpler to work with designers if you attach the UX patch to your business card. It’s all meant to say “I understand and respect your work, let’s collaborate”. And since technical writing is a landing pad, switching between those sides isn’t impossible."
https://passo.uno/what-is-a-documentation-engineer/
#TechnicalWriting #SoftwareDocumentation #DocumentationEngineering #Docs #SoftwareDevelopment #Programming
Rainer Gerhards
Miguel Afonso Caetano