Do you wish to be a technical writer? Read this blog post

Writing is a gigantic tree with a lot of branches. Each branch is a separate major from the others, which have its own properties. One of these branches is technical writing, which I will discuss in the following blog post.

The exact meaning of the term is what you learn at the beginning. Afterward, I mention some required skills for people eager to fit this position. The average salary and differences between a content writer and a technical writer are what I cover in the end.

Let’s start with the meaning.

What does a technical writer do? (tasks and doings)

In a nutshell, technical writers simplify complex things so other less knowledgeable people can understand them. When something is hard to get, the technical writer must make it understandable for readers who don’t have a background in the same field. But nowadays, the term has a new meaning and covers a broader range of tasks.

Years ago, these writers ought to document processes, write software manuals and instructional materials. These days, they do all it takes to establish a process from beginning to end.

Further, they have to form a relationship between 2 different sides. Whether both sides are employees of a company or one of them are final costumers.

Technical writers are experts in their own field who can write! They can transform the purpose of a complicated concept so that other people who know less can quickly apprehend it. In fact, they act as a bridge between technical staff and their less acquainted audience.

There are some essential skills that any technical writer must master. I’m going to talk about this skillfulness in the next section.

What are the most important technical writer skills?

The topic is a highly demanded job. Stats show that the need for technical writing rose about 10 percent from 2014 to 2024. According to the growth, the more professional a technical writer is, the more chance he/she will get a job. So, some skills help these people get in the right position.

1- Great language and writing mastery

In order to streamline things, all technical writers must know the basics and grammar of the language they are writing in. Additionally, writing skills are obligatory to establish well-written documents free of errors.

2- Advanced communication talents

Do you remember what I said about connecting two sides or more? No? Well, technical writers act as mediators between two or more parties. They get the message that should be conveyed and write it in plain English or any other language they are working with. So they do communicate!

It is imperative for them to know how to speak in the most efficient way. That’s why communication skills are indispensable for this profession.

3- Questioning and exploring

Like any other writer in the world, technicals should know how to gather information properly. They must ask the right questions to get the needed answers with the help of the communication aptitudes I mentioned earlier.

The more they know the audience, the better they can craft writings that help those people. Therefore, knowing where to look for answers and having a passion for digging into a variety of sources is another required skill for being a technical writer.

Now let’s see how much a technical writer makes annually.

The average technical writer salary

The average number is a few bucks more than 77000 dollars per year in the US. While in France, technical writers get paid less. 45480 euros annually, to be exact. From country to country, this number increases and decreases.

So mainly, it depends on the fact that where are you working at. Even for freelancers, the average salary depends on their client’s country. So there we close the average salary case. But there is an important issue to bring in.

Most technical writers are not satisfied with what they are doing every day! According to Careerexplorer, Technical writing is at the bottom of the table of career satisfaction. Not that bad, actually, but they are one of the least happy professionals in the US. Maybe we can generalize the outcome. Maybe they find their job boring. Of course, the process of documenting and simplifying concepts is a difficult job to do, but absolutely it is not pointless. I don’t know why! I’m not a technical writer. If you are, comment below. Are you happy with what you are doing?

Speaking of, I’m not a technical writer. Let’s see what the differences between content writing and technical writing are.

Content writer vs. technical writer

These two fields overlap in some situations. But they are entirely different in meaning. As I said earlier, technical writers work to simplify complex concepts. At the same time, content writers are obsessed with keywords, search engines and these kinds of stuff.

We both try to give a solution. Technical writers do this through instructions and manuals, and we do it through blogging.

One of the most significant differences is in the purpose of using!

People read user instructions because they have to. They want to learn how their new buying works, so they get their attention focused on instructions. But when it comes to blog posts, most of the time, it is optional. I, as a content writer, should be able to grab your attention. You can easily neglect my writing and go to other blog posts about the same matter. So it is not obligatory for you readers. I have to try my best to write the best content available to satisfy my content consumers.

Although, despite all the differences, communication skills are a required skill in both fields.

Concluding everything I wrote

Some writers have the task of explaining complicated matters in plain language. Those are technical writers whom I wrote about in this blog post.

These people should master 3 crucial skills:

• Language and writing
• Communicating
• Exploring

Stats show that most technical writers aren’t happy with their job. If you are one and it is otherwise, let me and other readers know in the comment section.

I tried to convey the message in the simplest way possible to get familiarized with the profession. I hope you enjoyed reading it.