off-the-stack
cd ~/careers
Documentation / contentaka "Tech Writer"

Developer-Focused Technical Writer

If you can code AND write clearly, you're a two-headed unicorn the market overpays for.

Entry
$75k
Mid
$110k
Senior
$160k+
Demand
Rising

Technical writing for developers — API references, SDK guides, architecture docs — is a different animal from generic 'documentation'. You have to read the source, run the code, and explain it so well that a stranger ships in ten minutes. The supply of people who can genuinely do both is small, and 'docs-as-a-product' companies pay accordingly.

The myth

Writing docs is a junior, dead-end task.

The reality

At an API company, docs ARE the product surface developers judge you on. Docs leads sit near product and DevRel and shape adoption directly.

cat ./what_you_actually_do.md

  • Read source code and actually run it, then turn it into a reference a stranger can follow.
  • Write quickstarts and tutorials engineered so the reader hits success fast — the single biggest driver of adoption.
  • Own docs-as-code: Markdown/MDX in Git, PR reviews, CI that fails the build when a code sample breaks.
  • Build and test the sample code yourself, because docs that don't run are worse than no docs.
  • Increasingly, design the information architecture an LLM will read too — structure is now doubly load-bearing.

cat ./why_underrated.md

Writing is treated as the soft, lesser skill next to 'real' engineering, so technical people who can write often don't realize the combination is rare or valuable. But for any company whose product is an API or SDK, documentation is the literal first experience a developer has — bad docs lose the deal before sales is even involved. That makes a writer who can read code and explain it cleanly a direct lever on revenue, not a cost center, and the people who can do it are badly outnumbered by the demand.

grep -i 'good fit' ./who.md

  • Engineers who privately enjoy writing more than they admit.
  • People allergic to ambiguity who like making complex things simple.
  • Anyone who reads docs and thinks 'I could explain this better' — often.

cat ./pay.md

Generic tech writing pays modestly; developer docs at a dev-tools company is a different bracket. Senior developer-experience writers and docs leads at API-first companies reach $150k+, and strong freelancers writing developer content bill $100–150/hr because so few can do it well.

./break_in.sh

  1. Rewrite real docs

    Find a tool with bad docs, rewrite a page properly, publish it. That single artifact is your whole portfolio's anchor.

  2. Contribute docs to open source

    Maintainers are desperate for good docs PRs. It's the lowest-friction way to get real, attributable experience.

  3. Learn docs-as-code

    Git, MDX, static-site doc tooling (Docusaurus, Mintlify), CI for samples. This is what separates a developer writer from a Word-doc writer.

  4. Target API-first companies

    Stripe-tier docs are a hiring philosophy. Companies that treat docs as product pay the most and respect the craft.

tail -f ./a_day.log

  • 09:00Read a PR for an upcoming feature and draft the reference doc before it ships.
  • 11:00Write and actually run a quickstart, fixing two SDK rough edges you hit along the way.
  • 14:00Review community docs PRs and fix a broken code sample CI just flagged.
  • 16:00Restructure a navigation tree so both humans and the docs-bot can find things.

ls ./toolbelt

  • Markdown / MDX
  • Git & GitHub
  • A real language to read
  • Docusaurus / Mintlify
  • OpenAPI
  • A clear head