Personal stories: Why am I a Technical Communicator?

At the beginning of our career, we are searching for a job that would drive us and evoke our passion, or at least a job that would bring us some joy. Some people know in advance what they are looking for based on their liking or skills. Others, however, are totally lost and can find the activity they never imagined doing unexpectedly, and…this is it!

Reading stories about the start of someone’s career path inspires, doesn’t it? So, what about reading a few stories connected with the Technical Communication field? I was curious and interviewed my colleagues to obtain information about two points:

• How they became Technical Communicators
• What they like most about being a Technical Communicator

Have a look at what they shared with us.

“When I received a Philologist diploma and was trying to find my career path, I didn’t come across any single mentioning of Technical Communication. But I definitely wanted to try myself in the IT industry and wanted to do something creative.

My first attempt in an IT company was as a Sales Analyst, aka Lead Generator. Then, at some point, I decided to take the Quality Assurance course, but it was not my cup of tea either. Afterwards, I switched to the Graphic Design direction to work with images, logotypes, and branding. In between, I was a Translator, a Photographer, and a Copywriter. I loved working with both texts and visuals, couldn’t choose between them and had no idea how to combine them.

Eventually, I found a perfect combo! A bit of Writing, a bit of Design, a bit of QA, and PM competencies — the perfect balance — the Technical Communicator’s path!”

Oksana

“I used to be a teacher at a secondary school for 10 years. During my second maternity leave, I realized that I wanted changes. My friend suggested trying the Technical Writer position at the company he worked for. To be honest, I knew nothing about this job, but I dared. It was one of the best decisions in my life.

Some may think that Technical Communicator is a boring profession and suits a very small group of people, but it is a misconception. Everyone can find something to their liking here: creative people can prepare presentations, shoot videos, and design screenshots. Philologists can practice writing different texts like guides and scripts. Those who are “technicians” will be happy to work with the developers’ and API documentation.”

This author preferred to stay anonymous.

“I got this job almost by accident. I saw the advertisement for the TechComm Crash Course, thought it was something like a technical English course, took part, liked it, and got the job offer later.

I like the ability to combine crumbs of my knowledge from very different areas, such as design, markup languages, and English. Thus, every time I feel bored with the work I do, I can switch to a completely different stack of tasks without searching for a new job. “

Marta

“I became a Technical Communicator almost by accident, I heard of a vacancy for a person with knowledge of English, submitted my CV, passed a couple of interviews, and voila — I was hired at SoftServe! At that point, I was just looking for a job, but I grew to like being a Technical Communicator in this community.

It is a very legit reason to be a huge nerd and picky about pixels and alignments. Jokes aside, it is an interesting practice to dive into complex things and try to explain them in simple terms, and then produce something good-looking that other people will use. On the other hand, being a Technical Communicator can be a fate of a lonely ninja in the team: nobody knows what you are doing there, so you are not always seen as a part of the team. Sometimes, it takes a good deal of soft skills and persistence to integrate oneself into a team. “

Vasylyna

“It was my last year at the university. My friend told me about the TechComm Crash Course by SoftServe, and I decided to give it a go. Luckily, it was a match. I like the ability to learn and practice at the same time.“

Kateryna

“I lost my previous job and was looking for new opportunities. I also wanted to have a career and not get stuck at the same level for the rest of my life. So, I tried rolling into the IT game. First, I took two Quality Assurance courses but did not really enjoy the job itself. Then, I was recommended as a potential Technical Communicator. I liked the job description, and it fitted me well. And now here I am — communicating technical stuff!

I enjoy the ability to combine the approaches from Arts and Humanities with technical solutions. “

Oleksiy

A few other people started their way by developing content for websites or writing something more complicated. In addition, in all the stories, interviewees mentioned that communication with great people is quite important to them.

But wait, I missed my own story!

Working in the Customer Support department, I usually dealt with checking and fixing basic issues, explaining functionalities, and documenting processes. I lived with the thought that good technical documentation, user guides, and UI microcopy is in huge demand. It solves so many problems. At the same time, bad documentation leverages those problems. One day, I accidentally learned a bit of detail about Technical Communication from my colleagues.

As a person who adores writing, editing, and, to be short, working with text in all the ways, I got enthusiastic and told myself — why not? And I was not wrong.

Speaking about the best part of the job for me, it is figuratively being a builder — deep diving into the information you investigate, defining its relevance, picking the words along with grammar and semantic patterns, constructing the sentences, and developing the structure. The cherry on the cake is when I can visually depict text elements and create efficient content.

Hope the stories were stimulating and inspired you to give yourself a try and consider Technical Communication as your next job.

See you in the next blog article!