Few folks spend their entire career at the same organization. Fortunately, the core soft and hard skills of technical writing are very transportable—that is, they’re similar regardless of the organization or industry. As you gain experience in your craft, you should find it relatively easy to move into technical writing roles in other organizations or industries.

Technical writing can be a fantastic springboard into other careers. Technical writers who have worked in an organization or industry for a while often build up extensive specialized knowledge about products, processes, industry-specific laws and regulations, and so on. This wealth of knowledge can make it a relatively simple affair for technical writers with a good reputation to move into roles such as the following:

• Design or user experience (UX)
• Product management
• Project management
• Marketing
• Quality assurance (QA)
• Development, engineering, or research and development (R&D)

Voice of Practitioner

Francis Role: Technical Writer with 4 years’ experience Location: Manchester, United Kingdom Expertise: Software documentation “Try and get expert knowledge in the product. It doesn’t matter how great you are in AsciiDoc or Git, you’re not measured to that; you’re measured to how well you know the product. When you need quick turnarounds, or if you’re working with someone who doesn’t have time for you, if you’ve spent your spare time understanding the product you become a pretty safe person in the team and very valuable in the business. You also open up opportunities for yourself in the business to move into other roles if you want.”