questions for the interviewer (tech writing)

[cellio]

Somebody on a tech-writing mailing list just asked what kinds of questions we tend to ask interviewers when we're interviewing for jobs. The person had already mentioned, specifically for hardware-related jobs:

• Do you test the documentation? How?
• How does legal review work (for things like liability)?
• Availability of subject-matter experts for reviews?

Here's what I wrote in response:

My experience is in software, which might be different from hardware, but I always want to know:

• How early and in what way are writers involved in development? Do writers participate in functional and design reviews? Do we have input into the user interface? Are we part of the team, or do we come in later, take what they've built, and document it?

• Can I use the product? As much as I want?

• What processes do both the dev and doc teams follow? (If they say "agile" there are more questions.) How is doc reviewed and by whom?

• (How) do we make doc improvements that aren't directly tied to new features or bugs? (For example: larger reorganizations, improving indexing, adding runnable examples, tools improvements.)

• (How) do you use source control for documentation?

That's off the top of my head, without digging out my notes from my last round of interviews.

So that's not a complete list either, but these are the kinds of things I tend to be thinking about. (I also try to find out if I have access to the source code, but since he was asking about hardware I didn't bring that up.)

I also want to know where the documentation group is placed, organizationally speaking, but I usually learn that indirectly.

Comments

[paserbyp]

Exelent question about testing documentation! From my experience, usually in most cases, documentation sent to email alas with request for review. After review, only customers will escalate any fixes for documentation...Did I answered this question?

[madfilkentist]

This is related to your first question, but not quite the same: How much access will the writers have to the developers? Can we contact them directly, or do we have to do through channels?

[metahacker]

Neat list. Early involvement of Doc is pretty important, and hard to pull off--especially as the company grows larger.

Have you worked on stuff that gets translated? If so, how'd that go?

[jducoeur]

Oooh -- those are delightfully thought-provoking questions. I don't think I've ever been involved in an Agile process that included Doc in the core team, but now that you raise the point, that's clearly a process failure. (Indeed, I suspect that having Doc involved from early on would bring UX benefits.)

Of course, I've too-rarely worked anywhere that had genuine professionals doing the documentation to begin with, which says something in and of itself. Yet another reason why I desperately want to have enough money to staff Querki properly...