Technical Writer

Job Name

Technical Writer

Brief description

A technical writer is responsible for gathering and organising information and presenting it in an easy to understand format for viewing by those not technically profficient.  They are likely to specialise in a certain medium such as HTML, or Word based documents (Pro-technical-writing.com, 8 August 2007). Technical writers research and write information-based material for articles, manuals, text books, handbooks, and other multi-media products, usually for education or corporate purposes (myfuture.edu.au, 8 August, 2007).

A technical writer is a professional who:

• researches and writes user and reference documentation for computer systems
• writes hardware manuals and technical descriptions
• writes policy and procedure documents
• edits and formats documents
• writes technical and functional specification documents (HCi,2007)

Technical writers are professional writers who design, create, maintain and update many types of technical documentation online help, user guides, white papers, design specifications, and other documents.

Their given field can be almost anything that requires specialized knowledge and information. Examples include the mechanical, electrical, or medical fields, but most technical writers work in the computer/information technology area.

A technical writer's primary responsibility is to effectively communicate a technical message. Technical writers are responsible for creating documentation that is accurate and complete, but as concise as possible, and as easy for the intended readership to understand. Some technical writers also communicate in other modes (e.g., writing scripts for industrial film or video). (Wikipedia, 2007)

Defence Housing Australia Technical Writer (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)

Duties
This position reports to the Manager Business Improvement and Architecture within the Business Solutions and Technology group. The successful candidate will utilise technical and business writing skills to prepare technical reports, publications, proposals, and related documents, review and edit material for proper use of terminology, style, direction, content, grammar, punctuation and clarity, design and format. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)
 
Eligibility
Employment will be under Australian Public Service conditions and an Australian Workplace Agreement will be negotiated with the successful applicant. The remuneration package is negotiable and includes a base salary, potential performance bonus and Commonwealth funded Superannuation. Applicants must be Australian citizens and are short listed based on the Public Service Act 1999 Merit Principles. Applicants must provide the names and telephone numbers of two referees as selection may be made on the basis of applications and referee reports alone. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)

The Accel Group (Private Sector) General Information

This is a fantastic permanent opportunity for a Technical Writer/Documentation Specialist to work closely with Compliance Business Analysts in defining and delivering policies and procedures as it relates to IT operations, Disaster Recovery Process and Business Continuity Planning. A secondary focus will be compliance requirements as they relate to financial documentation and policy. This will require liaising with departments locally, regionally and globally across the organisation. The role will offer stable employment with a dynamic multinational corporation who have a strong reputation for quality. It will require someone with excellent communication skills and great attention to detail (Seek.com.au, 7 August, 2007).

Duties & responsibilities of this role

 The duites and responsibilties of this position advertised is to:

• Develop and deliver a documentation standard and policy;
• Deliver policy and procedures;
• Manage key relationships with Senior Operations, Financial and Senior IT local and Regional resources; and
• Ensure that policy, procedure and documentation is delivered for areas such as SOX compliance, BCP, DRP, Security, Backup/restoration, UAM and support (Seek.com.au, 8 August, 2007).
• Manage your own deadlines
• Work to set documentation styles and standards, and updating as required (Seek.com.au, 9 August 2007)
• Write technical reports based of inputs from development and engineering staff. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)
• Create and update reporting templates for the use of deseminating data for the Department of Defence and for internal consumption. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)
• Create and update technical manuals for various internal and external application offerings. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)
• Create dfraft policies procedures for dfelivery to internal and external customers. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)
• Review and edit reports and writings of application developers and engineers. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)
• Review and edit website copies. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)
• Provide consultation and recommendations on deliverable and other documentation formats. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)

 Infrastructure Resource Solutions (Private Sector) Responsibilities

• Provide support for the evaluation of the overall efficiences in current policy and procedure documentation and provide recommened enhancements (Seek.com.au, 13 August, 2007).
• Deliver new policy and procedures and enhancements to exisiting policy and procedures locally, regional and globally (Seek.com.au, 13 August, 2007).
• Ensure regional and global standards and procedures are documented, destributed and maintained (Seek.com.au, 13 August, 2007).
• Deliver an auditing and compliance strategy across the organisation (Seek.com.au, 13 August, 2007).
• Deliver change management procedures, structure and operation in order to educate the organisation on new and current policy and procedures and the associated risks if corporate governance is not followed (Seek.com.au, 13 August, 2007).
• Assist with managing budgets, risk and compliance issues (Seek.com.au, 13 August, 2007).

Selection Criteria Public Sector Job

1. Demonstrated proficiency with software including Microsoft Office, Enterprise Architect, and Confluence.2. Demonstrated experience using technology such as video and graphic capturing software. 
3. Experience working as a Technical Writer in an IT environment, producing technical and user based documentation.

4. Demonstrated experience translating and presenting technical data and terminology into meaningful written output, for a range of audiences.

5. Ability to analyse and represent business processes and procedures in a textual and written format. 

6. Ability to communicate information and ideas clearly and concisely both verbally and in writing. (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)(Seek.com.au, 13 August, 2007) 

Previous Experience:

• Minimum 2 - 5 years as a technical writer and professional approach to problem solving will ensure that you are successful in this role ( Seek.com.au, 9 August, 2007)

Indicative responsibilities:-

¿ Manage the maintenance of Engineering documentation
¿ Manage the document review and approval process
¿ Support Electronic Document Review Management
¿ Assist with the preparation of Asset Maintenance Plan documents
¿ Support the Operations Management System and intranet deployment
¿ Providing QA and QC support to asset information reviews
¿ Develop and apply documentation standards
¿ Lead Technical Writing Team
¿ Interviewing of Subject Matter Experts

The Accel Group (Private Sector) Responsibilities

• Develop and deliver a documentation standard and policy
• Deliver policy and procedures
• Manage key relationships with Senior Operations, Financial and Senior IT local and Regional resources.
• Ensure that policy, procedure and documentation is delivered for areas such as SOX compliance, BCP, DRP, Security, Backup/restoration, UAM and support (seek.com.au, 7 August, 2007).

Job requirements

Experience:

• Technical writing and/or content development in the IT industry
• Well developed knowledge of documentation systems
• Sound knowledge of the documentation production industry
• Sound knowledge of the documentation production methods
• Writing and editing technical & training documentation (Seek.com.au, 8 August, 2007)
• Capable of transferring policy into instructional documentation and developing work aids (Mycareer.com.au, 9 August, 2007)
• Experience in collecting and rationalising technical details into support and transition documentation (Mycareer.com.au, 9 August, 2007)
• Demonstrated ability to liaise and manage relationships with a variety of internal and external stakeholders (Mycareer.com.au, 9 August, 2007)

You should also have the following skills in:

• Publishing and Content Management Systems
• Microsoft Windows environment
• Microsoft Office Suite
  Adobe Acrobat
• Documentation techniques including graphics programs, Screen capture, scripting, eLearning, Visio and Project (Seek.com.au, 9 August,2007)
• Web technologies including HTML, DHTML, XHTML, CSS, PDF (ASP, Javascript, XML/XSL are desirable but not essential) (Seek.com.au, 9 August, 2007)

Technical writers need to possess a mix of technical and language abilities, and have degrees or certifications in areas such as Computer Science, Telecommunications, Technical Communcations, Journalism, Communications and Management. The writer should have enough expertise to understand the document's intended readers. (Wikipedia,2007)

The Accel Group (Private Sector) Experience Required

• Detailed and specific experience in the definition and delivery of best practice policy, procedure and documentation
• Detailed experience with delivering DRP/BCP documentation, policy and procedure.
• Experience with the entire spectrum of information technology operations within an unstructured environment.

Private Sector

Salary

• $85,000 - $95,000
• $55.00 - $87.50/hr+ (contract)

 (Mycareer.com.au, 8 August, 2007)

Salaries for technical writers range between $40K and $90K, plus super.  (HCi, 2007)

Public Sector

Salary Technical Writer

(DHA, APSjobs, 2007)

Industry/Organisation

Private Sector

Michael Page International (Seek.com.au, 8 August, 2007)

The Accel Group (Seek.com.au, 8 August, 2007)

Techwriter (Mycareer.com.au, 8 August, 2007)

Mindworx People (Mycareer.com.au, 8 August, 2007)

Infrastructure Resource Solutions (Seek.com.au, 13 August, 2007)

Public Sector

Defence Housing Australia (DHA, APSjobs, 2007)

Job listings

Taken from Defence Housing, 10 august, 2007 http://www.apsjobs.gov.au/SearchedNoticesView.aspx?Notices=10351971&tid=1&ru=%2fsearchresults.aspx%3fifm%3dtrue  http://www.dha.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/13735/0194-Selection-Documentation.pdf

Seek.com.au (7 August 2007) Finance Technical Writer / Content Developer Retrieved 8 August 2007 from http://it.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=83&PageNumber=1&JobID=10133148&

Seek.com.au (7 August 2007) Technical Writer Retrieved 8 August 2007 from http://it.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=91&PageNumber=1&JobID=10139859&\\

Mycareer.com.au (18 July 2007) Technical Writer Retrieved 8 August 2007 from http://mycareer.com.au/jobs/north-shore-lower-area-nsw/it-telecommunications/technical-writing-desktop-publishing/5252210+technical+writer.aspx

Mycareer.com.au (11 July 2007) Tech Writer Retrieved 8 August 2007 from http://mycareer.com.au/jobs/surfers-paradise-4217-qld/it-telecommunications/technical-writing-desktop-publishing/5228700+technical+writer+tech+writer.aspx?style=enhanced\\\\

Seek.com.au (7 August 2007) Tester/Technical Writer Retrieved 8 August 2007 from http://it.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=54&PageNumber=1&JobID=10139747&

Seek.com.au (3 August 2007) Technical Writer Retrieved 9 August 2007 from
http://www.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=129&PageNumber=1&JobID=10100029

Seek.com.au (8 August 2007) Technical Writer - Publications Team Retrieved 9 August 2007 from
http://it.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=22&PageNumber=1&JobID=10149301&

 Mycareer.com.au (18 July 2007) Technical Writer Retrieved 9 August 2007 from http://mycareer.com.au/jobs/canberra-act/it-telecommunications/technical-writing-desktop-publishing/5253562+technical+writers.aspx?style=enhanced

Seek.com.au (last modified 13 August 2007) Technical Writer/Documentation Analyst. Retrieved 13 August, 2007 from http://it.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=54&PageNumber=1&JobID=10189745&

Seek.com.au (last modified 7 August 2007) Technical Writer/The Accel Group. Retrieved 21 August, 2007 from http://it.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=54&PageNumber=1&JobID=10139859&

Differences observed

The private sector postions are more oriented towards operational functions such as training and documentation updating and revisions in the private sector which is driven by profits. The Private sector has a "lack of profit motive in government" is not driven by profits and the "political component of decision making" in the Public sector means that it has a larger policy procedures component involved in the Technical Writer position at the senior level of Executive Level 1 position. (Public sector labor relations, David Lewin, 184, 1977).

Similarities and differences observed between The Accel Group (Private Sector) and Infrastructure Resource Solutions (Private Sector) positions advertised

Many of the responsibilities required for these positions are the same with a strong emphasis on keeping up to date and efficient policy procedures. Both these positions deal with communicating their information locally, regionally and globally across their respective organisation. One difference observed between the advertisments is that the Infrastructure Resource position requires the candidate to assist with managing budgets and risk aswell as to educate the organisation on the associated risks if corporate governance guidelines are not followed.

Other References used

Taken from Defence Housing, 10 august, 2007 http://www.apsjobs.gov.au/SearchedNoticesView.aspx?Notices=10351971&tid=1&ru=%2fsearchresults.aspx%3fifm%3dtrue 

HCi.com.au (2007), Technical Writer Retreieved 9 August 2007 from

 http://www.hci.com.au/hcisite5/home/technical%20writers.htm

Myfuture.edu.au (2007), Occupation Information Technical Writer Retrieved 8 August 2007 from http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/default.asp?FunctionID=5050&ASCO=253421A

[]Pro Technicalhttp://www.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=112&PageNumber=1&JobID=10100029

Wikipedia.org (2007), Technical Writer Retrieved 9 August 2007 from

http://.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writer\\

Writing (2006), Definition of Technical Writing Retreived 8 August 2007 from http://www.pro-technical-writing.com/definition-of-technical-writing2.html