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I actually did some paid technical writing on the side in 2019 on top of my full time job as a developer. It helped a lot that the company I work for started a
by rpeden 7y ago
I actually did some paid technical writing on the side in 2019 on top of my full time job as a developer.
It helped a lot that the company I work for started a technical content agency as a new division of the company and was okay with me doing extra paid work for them outside of normal work hours.
If you're a developer who is also a decent writer, maybe something like this would work for you?
I actually found technical writing to be a nice change of pace from my day job. If I'd tried to do extra paid software work on the side I think I'd have felt burned out rather quickly.
If you want to know more about getting into technical writing, my email address is in my profile.
- matt_the_bass 7y agoCould you please define what you mean by technical writing? I’m curious since it is such a broad topic.
- rpeden 7y agoSorry for the slow reply. Most of what I've done has been for clients that want to document how to accomplish something specific with a company's library or API. Usually this ends up being 1200-1500 words including detailed instructions and code samples. A few weren't product specific, but instead about how to accomplish a specific task with React or Angular. Companies pay for articles like these because they hope to attract customers by providing useful information to developers. I think that's a fair trade, as long as the article is actually good and teaches something new to the people who read it. Personally, if I've read a good article or blog post I don't mind if the company mentions their own products at the end. It's not like they're forcing me to but anything. :) I've done one whitepaper as well, though I'm not sure that qualifies as 'technical writing'. More like writing a high level topic that is about a technical subject, but aimed at managers and executives who are thinking of adopting that product or technology.
- matt_the_bass 7y agoThanks for the reply! That’s interesting. I had always thought of TW as manuals and documentation. It never occurred to me that it could be “marketing”. At my job we’ve payed people to write articles for Trade journals That relate to our products. But I never thought of it as TW. Now that you mention it, it think it obviously does. How do you find these gigs? What’s the going rate for 1200 words?
- pdimitar 7y agoI am also curious as to what exactly do you mean by "technical writing"?
- el_dev_hell 7y agoNot OP but where I work we hire technical writers to: * Write external API documentation/guides. * Clean up internal API docs written by devs to make them actually readable (without messing up the logic/examples/etc). * Help with whitepapers (usually with the dev/ops/etc teams).
- pdimitar 7y agoThat's quite the heavy work. What do your compensation ranges look like (if you are allowed to disclose)?