Skip to content

My Tech Comm Origin Story

Overview

Tom Johnson, a technical writer and author of the I'd Rather Be Writing blog, recently posted about how people get started in the profession:

One of the classic stories that is told in our profession is how and why we got into technical writing. The story is usually one of unintended directions and decisions, in which someone initially intends to pursue one career, makes a series of adjusting decisions and course corrections, and finally ends up writing docs as a tech writer. Because so few people actually set out to become tech writers, the story is usually interesting to listen to.

I'm one of those who did not set out to become a tech writer. So, for my first post, I thought I'd share a little bit about my origin story.

Career, Interrupted

My career has been punctuated by recession cycles. I've faced three major rounds of layoffs over the years — print publishing, the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and real estate law (as a paralegal) — and after each one I had to pivot and reinvent myself. I had no grand plan. I reacted to the economic crisis at the time and did what was necessary to survive it.

It wasn't until I relaunched my career in tech comm in 2016 that everything came full circle. All of the disjointed aspects of my work history slid neatly into place as if I'd planned it that way all along.

My Disparate Career Paths

Instead of presenting a chronological history of the past 30 years, I'm going to discuss my disparate career paths and how they relate to what I'm doing now.

I graduated college with a BA in English and started out as an editor and writer for various small publications.

My very first job at a trade magazine predated desktop publishing software. I learned how to do pasteup with scissors, an exacto knife, and glue.

The act of physically assembling a publication, piece by piece, gave me a building-block level understanding of desktop publishing and, eventually, web development.

Web Development

Around 1994 one of my cousins launched his own ISP called ThirdWave LLC. At that time I'd been underemployed for a couple of years after my first layoff, and he gave me the most valuable advice of my career: "Learn HTML because the Internet is going to be really big."

So that's what I did. I taught myself HTML markup by clicking View Source in the browser. I remember being so delighted that I could change an HTML tag, refresh the browser page, and see instant results.

Pretty soon the help wanted ads were full of postings for people who knew HTML. Very few did back then. It was the first and only time in my career that I've had my pick of jobs.

Ultimately I wound up at a software startup company that developed CRM software and other projects, including a Java runtime engine that they patented. Along the way I learned CSS and Photoshop and took courses in Java, Visual Basic, and JavaScript. I designed product websites and wrote help documentation with RoboHelp.

This was my first foray into tech comm. Even though I didn't pursue it at the time, it helped get my foot back in the door in 2016.

The startup company was acquired in 2000, and 9/11 happened a year later. After that I faced another career-ending layoff and another recession that hit the tech sector hard.

Paralegal

By this time I was a single mom of a toddler and had to be pragmatic about my next move. I tried freelancing as a web designer for a little while, but the space was overcrowded by the early aughts.

There was also a tangible lull in the industry before "Web 2.0" and social media. I'm sure if I did a Google search I could find a bunch of "The Internet is Dead, Long Live the Internet" thinkpieces between 2002 and 2005.

So, I jumped ship. I returned to school for a paralegal certificate with a concentration in corporate and real estate law.

Although this was a completely divergent career path, it gave me soft skills that I use in tech comm. Specifically, analytical skills and the ability to decipher highly technical jargon (e.g., the legal language in a commercial lease). I plan to explore the intersection between legal and technical language in a future post.

Unfortunately, I have a special talent for picking doomed industries! My third career-ending layoff happened just after the crash of 2008, which decimated both real estate and law.

Content Marketing

I was unsuccessful in finding full-time work, so I wound up backing into freelancing. This time I returned to my roots in editing and writing.

This was during the rise of the content mill, a particularly nasty era for writers and editors. I had to spend long hours trying to make a living wage and got very good at writing or editing a blog post in 15 minutes so I could do four of them in an hour.

During this time I picked up web design again as a hobby. I took some WordPress development courses and learned Jekyll and Hugo. I loved it much more than my paying work, but I never dreamed I would be able to make a living at it again.

As miserable as I was, I gained writing and editing experience, which is of course valuable for technical writing and especially client-facing documentation.

There was no layoff this time around, but an unexpected opportunity that led me to where I am now.

The Tech Comm Relaunch

In late 2015 I happened to stumble on some tech writing blogs, including Tom Johnson's (linked above). I started to think that maybe tech comm would be a good fit.

Through a serendipitous connection, I landed a full-time job as a tech writer at a small software company not far from my home — my first full-time position in seven years. Because I had just been reading about best practices in the industry, I was able to introduce structured authoring to the team, as well as MadCap Flare for producing help documentation.

I was with this company for three years until they were acquired by an investment group. Although there were no planned layoffs, the new owners made a lot of changes in a short time. I was nervous about what those changes (especially new hires) signified for an employee my age, so I started looking for another job.

I joined the company where I am now. I have never regretted this decision and never looked back.

Everything Comes Full Circle

In my current position as a Technical Content Manager I'm able to use every skill I've acquired over the past 30 years. The best part is that I get to grow within my job; there's always something new to learn or some area of knowledge that can be deepened. It truly never gets old.

I view what I'm doing now as "full stack" technical writing, where one tech comm person directs the content, designs and manages the content vehicle (e.g., a help website), writes and edits documentation, and facilitates collaboration and workflow with SMEs. At larger companies with larger teams, many of these tasks are demarcated. I like being able to do them all.