Synergistech's Mid-2008 Job Market Perspective

August 9, 2008
By Andrew Davis
President, Synergistech Communications
866-591-2968, www.synergistech.com

The San Francisco Bay Area job market for technical communicators is slowing quickly, although in a few sectors salaries and contract rates remain higher than during the most lucrative years of the Internet Boom.

Among the characteristics of the current technical communications employment market are the following:

• Hiring organizations post mostly 'composite' staff job descriptions — requiring all the usual technical communications skills plus highly unusual subject-matter expertise in a given niche — and have frozen or closed their long-term contract openings
• Decision-making cycles take longer, as more affected organizations assess candidates' fit and weigh in on whether it's wisest to 'buy' the skills they need in the form of a technical communicator, engineer, QA person, UX professional, or some other variant
• When companies hire, they often opt to 'try before they buy,' setting up Contract-to-Staff arrangements that let them assess the match before committing to an offer of salaried employment
• Companies focus on short-term cost rather than quality of deliverables, speed of output, or overall value provided
• Product companies increasingly perceive technical communications, and especially technical communications service providers, as a necessary evil, typically criticizing their lack of subject-matter awareness or their inability to keep up with product changes

All these symptoms point to shrinking budgets for most new technology and product companies' belief that customers' experience matters much less than the product's initial cost. Software in particular is feature-focused and iterative, so quality implementations (with complete documentation, elegant user interfaces, and effective training) typically lose out to competitors promising another bell or whistle. Meanwhile, Technical Support bears the wrath of unhappy users but cannot do more than log bugs and provide workarounds.

Where's the demand?

Technical communicators willing to work onsite (at least part of the time), who have subject-matter experience in data security, mobile applications frameworks, and/or open source systems, and who have a track record of creating developer-oriented content are currently popular. To a lesser extent the same is true for those with experience explaining enterprise applications, relational databases, and telecom and data networking infrastructure to those technologies' implementors.

In Synergistech's view of the software industry, local demand for non-developer documentation — that is, content for non-technical users, system or network administrators, and other non-engineers — is all but gone. A major reason is globalization; the requisite skills are available at a fraction of the cost offshore. Also, weak copyright laws outside the US and Europe aren't a threat to companies offshoring non-developer documentation, because those deliverables contain no intellectual property. Although one can debate whether the quality delivered by offshore talent measures up to that available from local technical communicators, what's clear is that customers aren't rebelling. In fact, most customers aren't North American or European, so don't share local expectations.

By contrast, when creating content for software industry engineers whose responsibility is integrating a product with existing technology, and optimizing that interaction, North American Business English remains the standard and developer-reference content must be clear, accurate, accessible, and complete. It must also, as much as possible, anticipate the audience's needs and do its thinking for them, hence employers' need for technical communicators with a deep understanding of both product and audience who are technical enough to know what's needed and create it without subject-matter expert (SME) assistance. The era of the dictation-taker technical communicator is over, and that of the 'SME interviewer' is ending fast.

In the local biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries, there is comparatively flat demand for technical communicators, and most employers seek at least a bachelor's degree directly related to their field — such as in biology, chemistry, or biochemistry — for entry-level positions.

In the computer hardware, semiconductor, and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industries, only those technical communicators with technical knowledge approaching that of a junior-level engineer, and the ability to generate accurate, complete, relevant content without guidance, can expect a bright future. These industries are more mature than the software sector, and have already either automated, offshored, or eradicated their technical communications functions.

Synergistech has noticed no demand for technical communicators in the well-funded green technology, nanotechnology, and energy sectors. When demand does materialize, it's reasonable to expect that it will favor technically aware marketing communicators — those who can both understand what the geeks know and persuade decision-makers at both the corporate and consumer levels that they'd be wise to buy it.

Is this a good time to (re-)enter the workforce?

No. The local market is increasingly crowded with laid-off salaried technical communicators and contractors who've suffered from the dearth of true contract (as opposed to contract-to-captive) positions. Sidelined candidates who have let their tools or technical knowledge atrophy, or who have long gaps in their work history, will have a tough time finding work, much less regaining their former earning power. For these people, professional seniority can be a curse because many employers actively seek flexible, do-whatever-it-takes workers who won't count the hours or make a fuss when promised resources fail to materialize. Senior technical communicators must focus on emerging niches or trends and take advantage of their networks, references, and portfolios to help them land roles others either don't know about or are too busy to pursue.

Entry-level technical communicators, even those with recent technical commnunications certificates, must be ingenious to find a foothold in today's market. Companies won't consider them until the supply of experienced, willing talent runs dry. They'll need to work their networks intensively, volunteer, lower their standards and compensation requirements, and find niches outside their preferred domain, then transition once they've proven themselves productive, reliable, and otherwise worthy of being retained. When the right opportunity presents itself, beginners will need to sell hiring managers on the twin advantages of having “fewer bad habits” (as one manager accurately terms the upside of their inexperience) and a lower price tag. They won't get formal training at most companies, but their enthusiasm and energy can compensate and they usually get the benefit of the doubt when they make mistakes.

Contracting trends

Early in the recovery from the 2001-2003 recession, many companies opted to reduce their fixed costs and hire technical communicators on contract. The justification was either a near-term, closed-end need or the aforementioned 'try before we buy' policy that allows a real-world trial before transitioning to staff status. With pessimism now prevailing, cost-control concerns reigning, and urgent product introductions subsiding, most companies are opting to hire salaried workers and reduce their ‘cash burn rate.' That translates into a preference for salaried workers, albeit often following a short contract stint to evaluate compatibility.

Contract opportunities are still comparatively easy to secure for those with rare skill sets, exceptional track records of dependability, autonomy, and resourcefulness on comparable projects, and first-rate, recent references. They tend, however, to be short — seldom longer than three months. We're seeing direct (that is, without agency markup) rates for API/SDK writers tasked with ‘rescue missions' hit $100/hour, typically 1099 or corp-to-corp. For W2 workers, reduce those numbers by 8-12 percent to offset the client's employment costs.

Companies of all sizes now typically opt to hire contractors on a W2 basis, in spite of the increased costs, because their CFOs and lawyers have advised hiring managers not to risk contractor-reclassification audits. As a result, unless you're incorporated or are doing a one-off project unrelated to the company's day-to-day operations, you'll likely be required to sacrifice your business deductions and accept a post-tax paycheck. Working offsite on your own equipment, and only showing up for meetings — even when compatible with the company's culture — is no longer sufficient to reassure many bean-counters that you'll not file for unemployment when the project ends, exposing them to expensive clashes with IRS, FTB, and EDD.

Offshoring

Most technology companies have globalized their workforces, and many technical communications jobs have left US shores — for Asia, the EU, Russia, Israel, and even Africa — never to return. However, some offshored work has returned to the Bay Area after employers realized that their cost savings were cancelled out by the need to rewrite content to meet the demands of a domestic or European audience.

Local technical communicators have an advantage: they write North American Business English better than their foreign rivals. When paired with concerns over theft of intellectual property when product development moves abroad, this advantage will last a few more years — until Technical Writers in Bangalore and Shanghai and Warsaw learn how to 'sound American in print' and international copyright laws get patched.

Synergistech's advice: if you suspect your job is in jeopardy, you're right. Even if you don't think you should worry, worry anyway. That's because, unless you have unassailable, unexportable expertise, you have only one or two more years left to either a) get more technical, so you can work with more complex products and benefit from the strong demand for engineering-oriented communicators, b) transcend standard technical communications roles by moving into project management, technical training, usability, marcom, regulatory compliance (such as FDA or ISO 900x) documentation, or another audience-dependent role that can't easily migrate offshore such as financial or medical writing, or c) find work funded by local, state, or federal government.

As an aside, you'll notice that we're talking here about technical communicators surviving, not thriving. Synergistech knows over a thousand technical communicators in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it is no exaggeration to say that all of their earning power is under severe and increasing pressure. Andrew Davis, Synergistech's president, can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Technical Writers he knows who are happy, secure, and prospering. That number is unlikely to increase for the foreseeable future. No, these are not good times.

Where to turn to keep compensation high

Bay Area technology companies compete globally, and labor costs less everywhere else on the planet. This reality will keep pressure on local technical communicators to demonstrate their value. One way Technical Writers, in particular, can convince employers and clients to hire them is to prove that they can do more with fewer resources.

For companies developing multiple products or selling internationally, one compelling way to save money is to implement structured authoring with DITA. An evolution of SGML, DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is a standard for document templates that enforce structure. As a result, companies can more easily re-use their content, manage it centrally, make it tool-neutral, tune it for specific audiences, and distribute it simultaneously in multiple formats and foreign languages, all while reducing production, translation, and maintenance costs.

Technical Writers able and willing to create structured content, and specialists who help companies transform their content from unstructured to XML-based structured documents using XSLT, with or without purpose-built content management systems (CMS), can expect growing demand as this trend spreads. Interest in this solution is inevitable because the cost savings are so pervasive. That said, many cost-conscious companies are still proceeding cautiously because of the significant initial implementation (template design, workflow setup, and XSL script development) costs.

Another technical communications sub-specialty that will experience increasing demand is technical training. Synergistech makes a distinction between soft-skills training (targeted to a relatively untechnical audience and either repackaging the product's users guide or delivering a 'best practices' message in an upbeat tone) and technical training (aimed squarely at a technically sophisticated audience and imparting undocumented and highly specific knowledge about product implementation, integration, or optimization). The latter generates substantial revenue, even in recessionary times, while the former gets shelved as soon as budgets shrink. If you excel at public speaking, are technically sharp enough to hold your own in front of an audience of engineers, don't mind traveling up to 50 percent of the time, and want not to fret about pending layoffs, become a technical trainer. One more tip: to preserve the respect you'll earn from your audience of techies, don't tell them that you were once a Tech Writer.

Finally, certain technical communicators will experience intense demand as technical community builders and developer advocates. Enlightened engineering organizations such as Adobe, BEA (before it was eaten by Oracle), Apple, Google, and Hewlett Packard — and dozens of smaller niche product companies — fund teams to reach outside their firewalls to independent developers, ascertaining their needs and relaying them to internal groups (such as Technical Support, Marketing, and Product Development), and coordinating access to the requested resources. Typically these developer advocates create, and grant participants access to, a knowledge base, specialized forums, pre-release code, need-to-know documentation, and other empowering tools. In exchange for such access, participants sign strict non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and give regular, candid feedback that improves the companies' subsequent product offerings. The technical communicators who fare best as developer community builders are those with sufficient technical depth to be able to 'think like an engineer,' an extroverted personality, strong social and organizational skills, plenty of initiative, the ability to persuade, and confidence in their ability to communicate with the geekiest of geeks.

Synergistech shares its current (August, 2008) view of going rates for ten local varieties of Silicon Valley contract technical communicator in this entry from its Candidate FAQ.

Software industry tech-comms trends

In the software arena, companies are only interested in hiring local technical communicators — Technical Writers, Trainers, Instructional Designers, even Editors — who demonstrably understand their specific audience and have recent experience with their technology. They routinely ignore those who don't, or they hire them offshore.

Software industry decision-makers are sending a clear message to Bay Area technical communicators: technical subject matter knowledge and a deep understanding of one's audience trump all other factors affecting who gets hired and what they can earn. Hiring managers now insist on communicators who can create content with little or no input from subject matter experts.

To make the big bucks and survive corporate attrition, it is now insufficient merely to have created similar deliverables using the same tools. To get hired, technical communicators need to know a specific audience's context, what information it needs, and how both to find that information independently and present it efficiently. Audience insight, autonomy, and speed are the watchwords of the day.

Another way to put this is that the days when technical communicators could ‘come up to speed' on the job are gone. Not only are engineers and other traditional sources more unavailable than ever, but management is more impatient with what they consider vague, irrelevant, and uneducated questions. Companies need for technical communicators themselves to know what to create and for whom to create it, not just how and when to create it. Compounding the problem is that most technology product companies won't allow technical communicators to interact with their users — perhaps the biggest 'elephant in the room' dooming the future effectiveness of the profession.

What can an insufficiently technical Technical Writer, for example, do when he or she lacks an understanding of the subject material or what the audience needs to know? Get educated about what peers have done in similar situations, and clearly communicate one's abilities and expectations. Offer choices, discuss tradeoffs, and keep management fully informed. Don't sulk or get cynical; get practical. If the company could have found a mind-reader with exactly the experience they needed, they would have hired that person instead. But don't get apathetic either, because — even though they hired you (or perhaps brought you on as a contractor) — they'll never stop looking for someone cheaper, hungrier, and more technical.

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