On classifying employers

Over the past few years, we at documentat.io have been actively researching the technical writing job market: conducting sociological studies among technical writers and speaking extensively with companies that employ documentation specialists.

In this talk, I will describe the differences we observe between various companies hiring technical writers, and which of these differences most strongly shape the nature of documentation work in different organisations.

We will explore:

• why businesses have different expectations of technical writers,

• why working processes — and even salaries — in documentation teams vary depending on the employer’s business model,

• how a technical writer can find a role and a company that truly suits them.