Often I’ll see job postings for technical writers that prefer them to have engineering degrees.
I recently saw an article on what makes an ideal tech writer offer this advice: “Have at least a bachelor’s degree in a technical field such as Computer Science or Engineering. Or, if you have a degree in a non-technical field such as Journalism or English, you are required to have technical and scientific knowledge and training.”
Problem is, that’s very hard to find–and it’s unnecessary.
The attitude has changed on this over the years—with good reason, as I’ll explain below. In fact, many companies have started incorporating tech writers into their marketing departments, too, because so much of what we do is also business-focused.
I have a friend who has a mechanical engineering degree and is a tech writer, but he’s very rare. And I don’t mean to suggest engineers can’t write – they can, but writing usable, readable copy for the right audience is not their focus and therefore their skills in communication are not honed.
Technical writers know how to communicate technical information without having engineering degrees. That’s why tech writers are good at what they do. So how do we do it?
- We know how to speak to the audience. We find out what the audience wants, and frame the material to them
- We know how to interview subject matter experts with respect to their time and their knowledge. We know the questions we need answers to
- We know the level of technical detail the audience will need, and if the audience needs fine technical details, we’ll work with the subject matter expert to get that
Think of tech writers as a document’s Sherpa. We’ll guide the way to completion, and write it all in a way that makes sense for the reader. Engineers have their primary jobs to do, and this kind of document preparation is not their focus. But with a great working relationship with a tech writer, a successful document can be produced, making everyone look good. As a result, tech writers do not need a degree in a technical field in order to be successful.
