I stand by the idea that more often than not, technical writers shouldn’t be expected to have industry expertise. Beyond that, there’s value when a writer comes from a different industry, brings new ideas, and challenges existing assumptions. In this post, I want to explore the topic of embracing versatility in hiring (and applying), and how, by leaning on subject-matter experts, technical writers can maximize their unique value.

Looking for a unicorn

Expertise is overrated. There, I said it! For a technical writer working in tech, it doesn’t matter. At least it doesn’t matter as much as hiring managers think it does.

The value a technical writer brings doesn’t come from specific industry knowledge. It comes from the process writers establish.

  1. Set up clear channels of communication with stakeholders and be boundary spanners.
  2. Dig into the core of the project to understand what’s important and what’s not.
  3. Create docs that cater to a specific audience looking to solve a specific problem.

It can be replicated in any industry.

Chances are, any given company already has subject-matter experts, the bearers of knowledge. These are people with PhDs on the topic, people who have been working in this industry or have been with the company for many years and know who to talk to and the context behind decisions impacting the present. A technical writer can’t be, and I’d argue should not ever be expected to be everything.

An industry outsider brings a fresh perspective. They are free from the curse of knowledge and are more likely to challenge the established norms. By bringing their experience from a different domain, these technical writers can be the spark that ignites the fire for a completely new approach.

🤔 "Why do we do it like this?"
🤷 "We've always done it this way!"

Sticking to the knitting

There is a danger in becoming overspecialized in one industry, as you might start feeling that your knowledge inside this niche is where your power comes from. It really doesn’t. It comes from being honest and challenging assumptions, from knowing how to structure and present information, from refusing to include fluff that wastes a reader’s time. The danger of overspecializing is that it’s comfortable… until it’s not (e.g., industry bubbles and job market cycles).

I often find myself promoting technical writing as a career choice to people who mention they are looking for a change but aren’t sure what they want. The biggest selling point is that technical writing skills are transferable. If you eventually find that the role isn’t for you, you’re still better off than when you started. Your skillset is broader now, so you haven’t wasted your time. And those of us who have been doing it for some time might forget that. The power’s in the skillset.

When you’re a generalist switching industries and topics you’re writing about, you also learn your limits. You discover what you’re good at and excited to dig into. You learn what’s challenging to you personally and what you’d like to stay clear of in the future. This is valuable information. But you will only find it if you explore.

My experience with different domains

My stance on this topic was largely influenced by my start in technical writing. I began my technical writing career as a freelance writer at Yandex. Our technical writing department was organized into multiple teams, each responsible for docs for a specific product. Most tasks for a given product, especially the more complex ones, were handled within the team by writers who already had deep knowledge of that product. At the same time, we also had a shared pool of tasks where anyone could pick up and write docs for another team’s product.

This way:

  • Writers could discover products they enjoyed working on.
  • Team leads could find people who were interested in writing for their product and get them on their team.

As a bonus, if team members didn’t have the capacity to work on the team’s tasks, the work would still get done.

That setup allowed me to work with many different teams on a variety of products:

  • Crowdsourcing platform (my first API reference!)
  • Route planning platform (not afraid of Excel at all after those examples we had to put together)
  • Smart home platform (started treating information architecture seriously)
  • App development platform (here I got my first exposure to developer experience)
  • Advertising platform (taught me a lot in stakeholder management and how releases should be handled)
  • Educational platform (showed me the importance of working closely with customer support)

When I started looking for something different, I already had the experience of switching between writing docs for technical and non-technical users, documenting complex APIs and working on simple instructions for teachers. I knew I could do it, having done it many times thanks to our department setup. So, when I started writing docs for satellites, which sounds like a lot, I wasn’t too scared because I knew that I would bring the value first and foremost as a writer, as a simplifier of concepts, as an unwavering user advocate. And content review is what subject-matter experts are for.

An afterword call-to-action

To my fellow writers

Don’t be afraid of stepping into the unknown, especially if you only had the chance to work on a narrow range of things. Your value is in the processes that you create, in your desire to chase clarity, in the unique perspective of seeing the product through users’ eyes. Not in knowing industry abbreviations.

To hiring managers

You can’t reasonably expect everyone to know, let’s say, the difference between spatial resolution and ground sampling distance or [insert your industry’s equivalent]. Instead, look for someone who can learn and turn to experts for their knowledge, someone who understands their limits and, as a result, knows what to ask and when to ask it.

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