Ask HN: Has anyone here switched to a technical writing role? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Has anyone here switched to a technical writing role?

5 pointspoletopole1 comment

I'm currently exploring switching from an engineering role to something else but I'm not sure what at the moment. I love building stuff but I feel like I've bottomed out after so many years as a senior developer, meaning, that coding still satisfies my creative needs but I'm no longer intellectually interested in doing so professionally speaking.

Any how, I've been thinking about what different technical roles I can do or would be suited to do such as technical blogging or technical SEO. I'm not sure I want to start a business at this time in my life because I have other priorities, but it's still on my bucket list.

So out of curiosity, has anyone here made the switch to technical content writing or another role for a company coming from an engineering background? If so, are you happier now or enjoy what you do? Are you employed by a company or are you an independent writer and what are the pros and cons of either?

I think you can have a huge impact by institutionalizing knowledge in your organization.

Basically, what makes the difference between a junior developer and yourself ? The gap is huge, and you can help reduce it and compress the time it takes someone joining your organization to become really effective.

This will have a huge impact on hiring and retention. You will be able to hire junior developers and turn them into highly productive members. They'll get good faster and will be more likely to be appreciated by the team and feel better because they truly are contributing, etc.

A sort of handbook and knowledge base that leveraged what you know.

If you were to start a greenfield project, what are the things you'll set up right away based on what you know (monitoring, CI/CD, analytics, etc). A sort of stack for success, but not necessarily tied to technology stack. It can contain rationale: Here's how to test ideas, how to prioritize work, etc.

What would I learn working with you for a year? What would you consider to be important lessons and insights ? What are the scars.

If you were to disappear, what would you like the person who takes over to know.

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