Re: Senior Tech Writer classification

[beelia <beelia -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Hi all

I followed up on "Information Developer", which I got from Gene's message
and others who contacted me directly.

It seems this is the leading contender for replacing "Sr. Tech Writer". I
found it in postings by IBM, Oracle, SAP, HP, and many small companies as
well. Also found it in Bangalore and Mumbai postings as well as  I suspect
the thinking is that it is an umbrella classification that encompasses the
expanded roles of tech writers - online help, instructional design,
XML/Dita, JavaScript, and so forth. Since Radford is the only game in town,
I'm wondering if the job title came from their surveys.

I messaged my new company's Catbert and asked if he had heard of this one
and whether or not he considered applying this title (assuming it is a
Radford title) to all of the company's tech writers.

Stay tuned.

Bee

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 7:47 AM, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:

> Is being at the top of your profession really a problem
> if there's income headroom?
>
> Where do you want to go from where you are?
>
> Instead of playing games with job titles like "information
> developer," technical writer pay grades should be on a
> par with developer grades, which puts a senior writer in
> the same "boat" as a senior developer or engineer.
>
> If you're writing for a tech company, the Radfords are
> about as accurate as it gets.  Radford tech survey data
> is at least targeted to technology companies (and from
> technology companies with the interest and resources
> to spend money on joining the survey at that), so your
> compensation is not being compared to that of someone
> with the same title who is writing "rinse, lather, repeat"
> (not saying this is necessarily less valuable, but the
> reality is that it's less highly paid).  Woe unto you if your
> company is using the DOL data that the current STC
> surveys are based on.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "beelia" <beelia -at- gmail -dot- com>
>
> > At that point, I realized that most of my future colleagues at that
> company
> > are probably in the same boat, and perhaps I shouldn't be rocking it.
> After
> > I got assurances from HR that there is room to move financially on the
> STW
> > track, and that they're totally OK with printing "Online Help Developer"
> on
> > my business cards, I decided to drop the matter.
> >
> > So now I'm curious - have many of you been stuck in this classification?
> If
> > so, do you care?
> >
> > In short, do job titles matter? Has public perception of secretaries or
> > stewardesses changed because they are now known as administrative
> assistants
> > or flight attendants?
>
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