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Many thanks to those who responded to my query about the qualifications of a
Senior Level Tech. Writer. There were a wide range of responses, but I
think a few common threads:
-- Additional years experience
-- Project Mgt. experience (incl. working with other groups outside of Tech
Writing)
-- Design experience
-- Wider range of skills (HTML, Online, Printed, etc.)
-- Requires little or no assistance, management, hand-holding
Anyhow, I've included the responses I've gotten to date below. Each
response is seperated by >>>>>.
-- David
>>>>>
I work for a gov't contractor, and the differences here are
years of experience and level of (conventional) education. I'm
a "senior" because I have more than 10 years of experience
and a master's degree. It seems not matter whether or not I
can actually string a sentence together, it's the quantifiable
stuff that counts when providing warm bodies on a given
contract. That said, however, the local interviewers for
particular positions also look for relevant experience,
including tool and OS familiarity, project management
capability, general subject area expertise (e.g., software
manuals, electronics background, etc.), and cross their
fingers and hope that all that experience means the learning
curve will be relatively short.
>>>>>
Hi David,
It's usually a combination of things, but obviously more than at least 5
years of TW experience. A Senior TW has usually had to supervise others or
at least be a project lead. Seniors usually have some project management
experience and can handle a project from start to finish, even though they
may be the only writer on the project.
One would expect a senior tech writer to be able to tackle just about any
techwriting task and run with it from beginning to end. This would not be
expected of a junior, who would need some assistance.
Not all senior techwriters are managers, but some could be even though they
don't get the title.
And some of us are just old...
>>>>>
You might want to search the archives on this one. There was a discussion
of this subject not too long ago. I'm a senior tech writer and the only
thing that seems to separate me from my compatriots is that I have a few
more years experience and am about 20 years older!!! We all do the same
kind of projects using the same tools.
>>>>>
Often Senior includes some level of project management. Could also include
creating books/help from scratch as opposed to modifying something that was
already there. I'd also include creating templates and page layouts (for
whatever medium) in addition to just writing and editing.
>>>>>
At my job, "senior" implies experience successfully
leading projects, experience working with project
teams during a development process as well as
through normal release cycles. Senior also implies
that the person has created documents of all or most
of the kinds that we use at the company, online,
HTML, hard-copy.
Regarding tools, a senior writer can fix problems
faster (or at least track down the resources to
fix a compiling error faster than a junior writer)
The senior writers have more responsibility for
creating entire document plans for projects and
determining the outlines of the documents.
Some senior writers work more with the Document
Production staff than the junior writers and
do more schedule estimates and planning.
>>>>>
Supervision level
Junior/Entry: hand holding
No modifier : (very) little hand holding
Senior: No hand holding/some decision making
Very Senior : manager-level (also old age)
>>>>>
David, there's no standard for TW levels. As a general guideline, a
senior writer has been doing it for 5+ years, can handle multiple
projects simultaneously, is good at multiple DTP packages, and usually
has some experience with templates and design, as opposed to just
writing.
>>>>>
At least 10 years experience. Product knowledge. Capable of working with
minimum supervision.
etc.
>>>>>
At least seven years experience, for one. Also project management
experience.
