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Jonny Benjamin wondered: <<One of the tech writing positions that I
am currently looking into includes being part of a QA team in the job
description.>>
That's potentially a great opportunity, since QA has a high perceived
value in most companies, and it gives you a chance to prove your
worth and the worth of your documentation. In particular, if you can
identify usability and other "quality" problems and propose effective
solutions, you become seen as someone who is worth consulting on
larger issues. (That's been my experience, leastwise.)
<<In an initial interview, the HR person pointed out that 50% of the
position will involve running tests just like a regular QA member.>>
Another advantage is that you get to work directly with the product
developers, which isn't always guaranteed when you only work as a
technical writer. (Sad, but true.) The trick is to be seen as someone
who is helpful and providing valuable advice, not just the person
whose job it is to make the developers look like fools. That's not
always easy, particularly when they _are_ fools. <g>
But a little diplomacy goes a long way, particularly if your
relationship with the developers is friendly and extends beyond
simply pointing out problems. All good relationships are multi-
dimensional, and if you are seen as a friend or ally, it's easier to
also be the person who reports trouble. For example, you can
sometimes work with developers to detect and solve problems before
their manager ever notices that the problems existed. That turns you
from the guy who ruins their annual performance appraisal ("look at
all those errors Geoff found!") into the guy who helps them earn a
great appraisal ("hey, you didn't create any bugs this year!").
<<My feeling is that there is not enough regular documenting to do so
the company wants to take advantage of the TW for other duties.>>
That's potentially a good thing. It gives you many more employment
and career options, and provides a more interesting range of daily
tasks. And if you can find a way to formally integrate QA with
documentation, some large synergies become possible.
<<My fear is that they will have unrealistic expectations from this
position. They also told me the current writer who has been there 6
years is leaving and (of course they didn't say because) he/she was
not prepared to function as a QA member.>>
As in all such situations, the key is to find out what's involved.
Provided they're not planning to pay you for one job and make you
perform 2 jobs (16 hours per day), I think you should pursue the job
if all other details seem like a good fit. Don't second-guess the
other writer unless you have facts in hand: in our field, mean
longevity at a job used to be less than 4 years (no idea how/whether
this has changed) because writers are highly mobile and move on
quickly when they get bored. I remember people blinking in surprise
when I told them I'd been 10 years at my former job, but I had so
many opportunities to learn new things (plus a great boss) that I had
no incentive to look elsewhere.
----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
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