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If you were to leave development to pursue a career as a journalist, novelist, or non-fiction writer, it would be a hard slog. However, you already have a techn
by Veen 8y ago
If you were to leave development to pursue a career as a journalist, novelist, or non-fiction writer, it would be a hard slog. However, you already have a technical background, and technical writing is well paid. Also, executives at technology companies are rarely good writers, so there’s a market for people who can ghost write and blog for them (it’s how I make a living).
- owenwil 8y agoI left a development career to pursue a career as a journalist (in technology) and spent a number of years doing that, but eventually burnt out on the click-driven fest that is that space. I'm now self-employed, but I make a great living as a freelance explainer, essentially. I help a lot of big and small companies better talk to their customers in particularly technical segments—it turns out that almost all of the writers or communicators in the tech industry literally have no experience either building or implementing products. It's turned out to be a great niche! I actually also wield that in a form of explaining the news, from that perspective, to help others who might be trying to transition into the industry as well in a newsletter: https://char.gd/recharged https://char.gd/recharged. All of this is to say: being a writer actually provides _so many_ transferable skills. It's just a shame that the skill itself isn't valued in isolation.
- swtrs 8y agoCan I poke on how you transitioned? It was brought to me by a great colleague that I write and train technical and non-technical people well and want to see if its something I can do full time (contrasting my relatively boring ops eng day job.)
- owenwil 7y agoSure! just ping me: owen [at] char.gd