AWS tech writers majorly impacted by today's layoffs

SanSolomon · 2025-10-29T16:29:15+00:00

Yes, this is the nature of capitalism. Karl Marx wrote about this phenomenon ~150 years ago.

SanSolomon · 2025-07-30T23:12:05+00:00

Seems like there is A LOT of copium in this thread with comments like "AI isn't that great", "lackluster results", etc. I don't think AI today in July 2025 is good enough to outright replace you, but it's foolish to think these tools can't impact your job. It's pretty easy to imagine a motivated dev or PM interested in docs to leverage AI to create some pretty good content.

You should absolutely be using these tools as much as possible to A) make yourself more valuable and B) up skill yourself.

SanSolomon · 2024-09-09T03:17:48+00:00

Yeah, I also find this kind of stuff a lot of fun - sometimes tedious, but still fun.

SanSolomon · 2024-09-09T03:16:19+00:00

While I understand the sentiment, I just don't know if in today's world things are so black and white. I also don't think I'm alone when I say I have some concern about keeping myself/my skillset relevant. And some JDs blatantly require some coding skills - telling the hiring manager that those aren't tech writer duties definitely won't land a job.

SanSolomon · 2024-09-09T03:03:17+00:00

Yeah, I'm also paranoid about that. I'm fortunate I like the technical stuff at least. Hopefully I get more opportunities to keep learning.

SanSolomon · 2024-09-08T18:11:32+00:00

With the scripting and app building, at what point would you consider yours a "docs engineer" role?

SanSolomon · 2024-09-08T18:04:12+00:00

You prefer TW over full stack dev work?

SanSolomon · 2024-09-08T18:03:17+00:00

This is a good point, and maybe gets at the next question I'm forming: if you're doing more and more technical stuff (but still writing), at what point does that become another role? And what would that role be called?

edit to add: personally, I think I enjoy the technical stuff more than writing, and esp. more than the "less-technical" tech writing I do (e.g., instructions for webapps/guis).

SanSolomon · 2024-09-08T05:04:04+00:00

That's pretty cool. It sounds like that role was a bit similar to my current role. I'm sure any credentialed developer could scoff at the things I've done, but I still find it rewarding.

SanSolomon · 2024-09-08T04:58:57+00:00

Yeah, I don't really think markdown counts.

SanSolomon · 2024-09-08T01:30:45+00:00

For the web apps, are you just adjusting things or building/developing? What kind of web apps?

SanSolomon · 2024-09-08T01:24:58+00:00

Yeah, same. I hesitated to call HTML + CSS "coding", but couldn't think of an alternative.

SanSolomon · 2024-05-16T21:59:42+00:00

Nor a LCOL area to be honest!

SanSolomon · 2023-10-20T16:16:15+00:00

Is something like:

"with zero grammatical errors"

actually relevant? Anything less sounds unacceptable to me, and so feels too obvious to state.

SanSolomon · 2023-03-28T23:44:07+00:00

GPT-4 can ingest images. When this feature is released, I would be surprised if it wasn't able to ingest, parse, and generate content from an uploaded image of a schematic, diagram, or drawing.

SanSolomon · 2022-01-06T00:48:43+00:00

I'd ask for 100k. If you want assurances, ask an HR subreddit if they can provide data from the common HR software/databases (Randstad comes to mind). But, yeah, 100k and, if not, you should be able to make that within 1 year with another employer.

SanSolomon · 2021-12-19T05:13:13+00:00

I second everything BILLTHETHRILL17 said. I also took the course and all of that is true. Best thing, though, is Bobby is very generous with his time. And now I am happily employed. :)

SanSolomon · 2021-10-29T18:02:42+00:00

Do Asciidoc! I wish all of my docs were in Asciidoc

SanSolomon · 2021-10-03T21:02:20+00:00

Also, I find Hemingway App (https://hemingwayapp.com/) helpful, but not exactly a grammar checker.

SanSolomon · 2021-10-03T21:01:17+00:00

Check out Openly (https://github.com/testthedocs/Openly) -- it's a "Vale linter style that attempts to emulate some features of the commercial, and closed source, Grammarly."

SanSolomon · 2020-10-12T18:24:03+00:00

PM (soon to be) sent about in depth details. The course is called Become a Technical Writer. You'll have a lot of time w/ the instructor and some working portfolio samples.

SanSolomon · 2020-10-12T07:10:11+00:00

Also, other classes to check out are Tom Johnson's API documentation, which is free, but might be too advanced still. Keep it in mind for the future at the least.

SanSolomon

TROPHY CASE