> What do you program?: the languages, the type of program and in what domain (medical, developer tools, etc) Javascript, end-to-end. I build RESTful APIs for

> What do you program?: the languages, the type of program and in what domain (medical, developer tools, etc) Javascript, end-to-end. I build RESTful APIs for consumer-facing web applications (social and ecommerce mostly); and the occasional single-page-app client. I lead a small cross-functional scrum team. > What kind of writing (and other communication) do you do? Lots of emails, lots of shared google-docs, lots of diagramming and flowcharting, the occasional powerpoint or PDF presentation, and the occasional proposal or technical spec. > What kinds of audiences do you write for? Who's the hardest to communicate with? How is this influenced by your seniority and role? There are 3 distinct audiences: Higher-ups (product stakeholders and managers), team-members (people actually building the products with me), and the support team (offshore QA and pentesters, etc, who aren't really part of the core development team, but are still helping quite a lot). Communicating UP the foodchain is by far the hardest. Stakeholders often have only a vague understanding of what the team does all day; and might have an understanding of the product that is outdated or simply false. These communications have to be tailored to each specific listener. You have to understand what that particular investor/manager/product-owner thinks before you can attempt to inform that opinion. You also have to gauge their technical expertise before you can "talk tech" to them. Otherwise you'll sound like you're from Mars. > How much time do you spend writing during a typical workday? I'll go days or weeks without needing to write anything substantive; then a report or presentation will be due and I'll have to write all day. > How important is writing (and other communication) to such things as salary, prestige, and promotion? Important for your TEAM's prestige, not for your own personal benefit. Writing (especially to stakeholders) should praise team effort, but IMHO, a good team-leader will fall on the sword for any shortcomings in the product. So, the writing you do should get your team-member's well positioned for a promotion or salary-increase; but not necessarily you. > What would you focus on in learning and preparing to write better for a programming job? Two things: 1. Learn how to communicate technical problems to non-technical people. 2. Learn how to communicate business problems to technical people. There's often a "ships-passing-in-the-night" problem there. So my role as a senior person is often one of "translator" or "ambassador" between the two camps.