Maybe, but it wouldn't have been a slam dunk, because "have a dedicated writer" isn't a magic wand. I would have spent hours interviewing tech writer candidates

Maybe, but it wouldn't have been a slam dunk, because "have a dedicated writer" isn't a magic wand. I would have spent hours interviewing tech writer candidates instead of writing docs. I would still have spent a bunch of time putting information about the API into words for the benefit of the tech writer. But the more important thing is, the product wasn't big enough or changing quickly enough to justify having a full-time tech writer on staff. The initial published version of the documentation was a few weeks of work to write and edit (spread out over a longer period since I was also doing other things, but a few weeks total). And after that, it only needed occasional updates when we changed something about the product or when a customer had a question that we realized indicated a gap in the documentation. So we would probably have ended up hiring a contract tech writer. The writer wouldn't have been intimately familiar with the product. Which can sometimes be a good thing (since it means they have the perspective of a reader who is also not familiar with the product) but isn't necessarily great for efficiency. And also, I enjoy writing! So it wasn't a burden for me at all, efficient or otherwise.