Re: Technical Documentation for the financial sectors

[cfedruk -at- pobox -dot- com]

I'm on contract with a financial exchange in Chicago right now, and must
give you the classic "It depends..." answer. Let me give a quick reply to
each of your questions:

> - Do writers have to have special skills? Are there any specific requirements, and if yes, what are they? Are there options for training?

This totally depends on whether you're being hired by a bank, a trading
company, a clearing house, an exchange, a brokerage, etc. - and whether
you're being hired as an employee or as a contractor. As a consultant, my
12 years of tech writing experience was important, but not as important
*to this manager* as having had previous experience working with in
futures and options exchange. (even though I'm working on a clearing
house-related system here, not an electronic trading system like I did
before. Go figure.) And again, since I'm a contractor, any special
training would be coming out of my own pocket because they already expect
me to know the ropes. Any specific requirements would depend on who's
hiring.

> - Would you say that this sector is a potential growth area for the future?

Absolutely - the last question deals with "why."

> - What exactly do technical writers write about?

Whatever is needed! Sorry to seem glib, but it depends on too many factors
to cover here. For me, I work in an IT group that supports the exchange's
clearing house, and I write user manuals for internal software systems.
I'm also involved with business process improvement documentation -
helping the project management group create templates and review forms so
that all development projects are similarly run and documented.

This is partially where Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) comes in - certain systems
(depending on yet more strange criteria) must have "customer sign-off" at
certain stages of development if they will be used in a publicly traded
company (which this is), and it's important to have consistency across all
the "managed" projects.

> - For which companies do you document financial systems? All public companies?

I used to work in the "other" financial exchange across town, a privately
held company, and did similar work there. I hear that they're planning to
go public, though, so I imagine that their processes and procedures will
have to be refined. My husband works for a bank, and they are also putting
together some huge disaster recovery and risk management processes that
require a documentation team.

> - Do these companies usually have their own technical writing department, or is it common in this business to have an outside company do this?

At the other exchange, I was one of four full-time writers + two
contractors: here, I'm the only technical writer and I'm on contract. I
hear that other departments *want* writers, but nothing's in the works
yet. It'll totally depend on who's looking for a writer, and for what
particular need. And as I mentioned earlier, "in this business" is kind of
meaningless since there are so many different types of financial
companies.

> - Is it easy to get access to these companies? How do you get "customers" in
> this sector? Direct Sales, relationships, marketing, etc?

I was discovered by a recruiting firm through Monster for this gig, and
was placed by a tech recruiter friend in the full-time position I held at
the other exchange. Both of these exchanges use vendor management systems,
so there are no direct hires of consultants/contractors.

> - Are there long-term contracts or does technical documentation of financial systems only happens once in a lifetime?

In the exchanges I've worked with, system developement is a constant flow
of updates and redesigns and reengineered programs, and there's never
enough documentation - from requirements docs to design docs to user
manuals to support guides, there's rarely a complete "suite" of docs for
any one system, and everything's in flux as systems are enhanced and
refined over time. With SOX, though, there's a need for much more
standardization and consistency, and it makes me wonder whether existing
systems will need to be brought up to snuff, or if it's only new efforts
that must follow the new process. I'm on a nine-month contract right now,
and Lord knows there's another few years worth of work to be done... hope
I get to stay and do it. :-)

I hope that gives you (at least a smidge of) an idea of "the financial
sector" - I'd love to hear from anyone else in another financial
environment.

Christine Fedruk Long
- - - - - - - - - - - -  
cfedruk at pobox dot com

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