4 ms·

As a fan of good technical writing, I’ve entertained the thought that technical editing could be interesting. Is that a viable career choice?

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
I would expect not, in that a viable career needs to have enough of a range of workplaces that you can move between of varying sizes, responsibilities, and pay. I would expect only big technical publishers would actually have 'technical editors' and there would not be many of those positions available. So a thousand positions available as English language technical editor is the most I would expect. That's not a career to shoot for (in the way editor, programmer or technical writer can be) I would think a technical editor job would be limited to a relatively few large technical publishers, and in my readings on the subject I understand an editor there would be a normal editor who sends out books and articles to technical experts (in book's subject matter) for review of technical quality.
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  Well, there is a massive increase in new authors, and the enlightened ones among them realise that their work needs editing to help it stand out from the crowd. As a result there is an emerging market for author support, including editing, acquiring an agent, knowing how to submit manuscripts to a publisher if you are not self-publishing, etc, etc. The people supplying these services generally sit outside the big publishing organisations themselves.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I doubt even big technical publishers have much if anything in the way of technical editors on staff. For one thing, the same person is probably not going to be able to technical edit a book on Linux internals and Javascript. More typical is they'll reach out to people in their Rolodex and offer them a few hundred dollars to do a technical edit on a book in their area of expertise. ADDED: Of course, larger vendors do have documentation departments and there are people in those departments who manage technical writers, review docs, etc. But that may or may not be what's of interest.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    >I doubt even big technical publishers have much if anything in the way of technical editors hence my second paragraph. I figured the first paragraph shot down the idea of technical editor as a career instead of a position that one just lucked into, and the second paragraph explained that by understanding the one type of company you might expect to find the most technical editors actually doesn't use technical editors but instead normal editors.
kqr 6y ago
As important as technical editing is, I would liken it more to code review than traditional journalistic/literary editing. Someone good at reviewing code/editing technical texts is highly valued in any reasonable workplace, but you won't find job listings for "code reviewer" only.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I agree with that. At work, when I and others write an article/blog post/etc. with technical content we'll often send it to one or two other people to get some more eyes on it, especially if it's a topic at the edge of my experience. I'm also sometimes asked to review book proposals by publishers. And I know a publisher will enlist a technical editor to check out that code in a book works and to give a sanity check to the technical content overall. But these are all enlisting something between a few minutes and a few days work from someone familiar with a topic. And they're either just part of the job internally or they're some very modest payment from a publisher. Any given person is probably also only qualified to do technical editing on a limited number of topics, especially if the technical info is relatively deep.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

I would expect not, in that a viable career needs to have enough of a range of workplaces that you can move between of varying sizes, responsibilities, and pay. I would expect only big technical publishers would actually have 'technical editors' and there would not be many of those positions available. So a thousand positions available as English language technical editor is the most I would expect. That's not a career to shoot for (in the way editor, programmer or technical writer can be) I would think a technical editor job would be limited to a relatively few large technical publishers, and in my readings on the subject I understand an editor there would be a normal editor who sends out books and articles to technical experts (in book's subject matter) for review of technical quality.

KineticLensman 6y ago
Well, there is a massive increase in new authors, and the enlightened ones among them realise that their work needs editing to help it stand out from the crowd. As a result there is an emerging market for author support, including editing, acquiring an agent, knowing how to submit manuscripts to a publisher if you are not self-publishing, etc, etc. The people supplying these services generally sit outside the big publishing organisations themselves.
ghaff 6y ago
I doubt even big technical publishers have much if anything in the way of technical editors on staff. For one thing, the same person is probably not going to be able to technical edit a book on Linux internals and Javascript. More typical is they'll reach out to people in their Rolodex and offer them a few hundred dollars to do a technical edit on a book in their area of expertise. ADDED: Of course, larger vendors do have documentation departments and there are people in those departments who manage technical writers, review docs, etc. But that may or may not be what's of interest.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  >I doubt even big technical publishers have much if anything in the way of technical editors hence my second paragraph. I figured the first paragraph shot down the idea of technical editor as a career instead of a position that one just lucked into, and the second paragraph explained that by understanding the one type of company you might expect to find the most technical editors actually doesn't use technical editors but instead normal editors.

kqr 6y ago

As important as technical editing is, I would liken it more to code review than traditional journalistic/literary editing. Someone good at reviewing code/editing technical texts is highly valued in any reasonable workplace, but you won't find job listings for "code reviewer" only.

ghaff 6y ago
I agree with that. At work, when I and others write an article/blog post/etc. with technical content we'll often send it to one or two other people to get some more eyes on it, especially if it's a topic at the edge of my experience. I'm also sometimes asked to review book proposals by publishers. And I know a publisher will enlist a technical editor to check out that code in a book works and to give a sanity check to the technical content overall. But these are all enlisting something between a few minutes and a few days work from someone familiar with a topic. And they're either just part of the job internally or they're some very modest payment from a publisher. Any given person is probably also only qualified to do technical editing on a limited number of topics, especially if the technical info is relatively deep.