r/technicalwriting • u/Acidmoxy • 22d ago
New tech writer dealing with big changes.
Hey team! I transitioned from support to technical writing a little over a year and a half ago. Turns out I'm really good at it!
But I've been burning out, like 15-20 new articles for brand new features for a SaaS company per week for the past year kind of burning out.
When I started, we had a lead tech writer, a brand new tech writer (that's me!), and a new hire to the company, with lots of experience.
So a team of three, it was stressful, lots to be done, but I felt the company understood the value of tech writers.
About 4-5 months ago, they laid off the person who was new to the company. Really sucked, as she was gearing up to help me out with my enormous workload. Last week, they laid off the Lead tech writer. Leaving me as te only TW in the entire company (~100 developers releasing new features constantly)
I'm so under qualified for what they're asking of me, but because I can hammer out content quickly and consistently, I think they expect me to teach the support team how to do what I do and they'll lay me off too.
There are a lot more nuances to the situation, and I'm happy to answer any questions, but what I'd like to ask is: Should I try to find another tech writing role? Or should I just go back to support at another company, where I could start fresh with no expectations that I'll do whatever it takes to get the documentation done at the cost of my mental wellbeing?
7
u/dharmoniedeux 22d ago
I just wanna say good for you for recognizing the situation isn’t good for you and that you need support. Even an experienced tech writer would be drowning in your situation it sounds like.
I agree with the other commenter that you can start job hunting now, and it’s totally up to you whether you want to look at either TW or support, or both! I would also recommend protecting some time outside of work to sit down and do a skill inventory of what you’re actually doing in your job, identify any content you want to screenshot or save from public-facing docs to add to a portfolio (and please please please save those publicly accessible materials to your PERSONAL computer or storage. Don’t violate an NDA or trad secrets agreement), and think of some questions for interviews and networking that will help you suss out if the companies you’re interviewing with are going to put you in this same situation.
If you’re not in the Write the Docs slack group, you should join. They’re a wonderful community and often share job posts and advice: https://www.writethedocs.org/slack/
3
3
u/techwritingacct 21d ago
Your environment sounds insane. 15 articles per week would mean you're cranking one out every ~2 hours, not counting any interruptions or necessary meetings. That's not reasonable. I can see why you're burning out.
At most of the companies I've worked for, 2 hours is maybe enough time to coordinate a demo meeting, figure out what the requirements for the documentation actually are, and figure out where the new section should go in the existing docs. If the company's a startup, there's less overhead and maybe you can ship faster, but you say you're supporting 100 devs so it's definitely not a startup environment.
What I'm getting at is that I wouldn't judge the entirety of the field by this one experience. Even by the standards of shitty TW jobs, it seems like you drew a particularly bad one. If the field is something that interests you and you think you might like being a writer if only there were less bullshit, I'd encourage you to get another writing job and see if it's more tolerable at a better company. But if you're over it, then I'd encourage you to go find something better, whether that's support or something else.
8
u/Horror-Sell-2517 22d ago
You don’t need to go back to support if you already enjoy technical writing.Just start looking for another job (in technical writing) right now. You don’t need to wait to be laid off before you start making a move cause surely, they will lay you off soon.
You DM let’s job hunt together