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Re: Paths to Seniority - from technical support to technical writing?
Subject:Re: Paths to Seniority - from technical support to technical writing? From:Mary Arrotti <mary_arrotti -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:Joanne Elizabeth Murphy <joanne -dot- e -dot- m -at- gmail -dot- com>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Thu, 5 Jul 2007 07:11:30 -0700 (PDT)
It is *possible* to move into technical writing from technical support. You can (and many people have) move into techncal writing from many, many different areas. If you polled people on this list - you'd likely find people with diverse work origins - writers who started out as journalists, editors, developers, software support, educators, etc.
Sometimes people deliberately go into these type of areas to gain translatable skills so they can get hired as tech writers. (I did this as a former newspaper editor.) Other times, their role evolves into technical writing - for example, a developer who starts producing support docs for customers and develops training materials for new personnel. In those instances, they may move into a tech writing group or even be a company's first tech writer.
But you (Joanne) are considering working for a company (as you describe it) with no need or foreseeable need for a technical writer. So, if you start working there permanently and still want to be a technical writer - you'll have to leave. Will having tech support experience at one company make you a better candidate for a tech writer position at another company? Maybe. Maybe not.
If you can't get hired as a tech writer in your area & don't want to move - then perhaps the best thing would be to look at companies currently employing or likely to employ technical writers. Working there in another area (tech support, dev, etc.) - you have an opportunity to demonstrate your skills as an employee & possibly a writer.
Joanne Elizabeth Murphy <joanne -dot- e -dot- m -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
Right, so this is the question I am really asking you (congratulations if
you made it this far, your resilience is truly astounding): has anyone ever
made it to the level of Senior Technical Writer from a role working in
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