Technical Writer

Technical Writer requirements and qualifications

• A certificate or Bachelors degree, or other formal training in technical and/or professional writing combined with a technical certificate or degree, strong technical background or aptitude.
• Minimum of 4+ years of technical writing experience, with at least 2 years of professional work experience writing for a software product.
• Experience using the ID Workbench or other DITA-based tools (such as DITA Open Toolkit), including the Adept/Oxygen editor and XML transform tools to develop help topics and PDF documents that meet HCL quality guidelines.
• Knowledge of the DITA markup language for developing topic-based help, including specializations for samples, tutorials, and context-sensitive help.
• Experience developing multimedia content using tools such as Flash, ViewletBuilder, Camtasia, Paint Shop Pro, and Snag-It.
• Experience using the Eclipse PDE to develop and test help plugins.
• Successful candidate must have excellent written and organizational skills and the ability to see things from the user’s point of view. They must also be able to promote an atmosphere of teamwork and effective collaboration with all members of the project team. Excellent interpersonal skills, teamwork skills, and the ability to work with and assist others in a distributed team development effort, while still maintaining the ability to work independently.
• Firm understanding of the systems development life cycle (SDLC).
• Experience with source control systems and workflow tools--Git, JIRA/Confluence.
• A proactive and open-minded attitude to resolving problems and delivering results.
• Experience creating infographics to more clearly communicate workflow processes and abstract topics.
• Ability to write clearly and succinctly for multiple audiences using either formal or more casual tones.
• Ability to communicate complex technical topics to non-technical stakeholders both internally and externally.
• Proven ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously, with an eye for prioritization.
• Equally adept at gathering information by interviewing subject matter experts or by investigation
• Ability to manage multiple writing assignments simultaneously.

Bonus skills - these are not required, but are a plus:

• Prior experience working within IT Development, SaaS or web-based technology environment.
• Experience working in a technical startup company, preferably a SaaS company.
• Experience creating infographics such as diagrams, screenshots, workflows, graphs, etc.
• Experience with Markdown and documentation workflows.
• Experience working with Agile/Scrum software development teams.
• Experiencing with coding languages & tools including Ajax, Java, CSS, Java Script, REST API, Python, Confluence/JIRA, Git & GitHub, HTML.
• Experience using API documentation. Java programming is an asset.
• Experience with documentation publishing software.