Tech Writers Who Transitioned Into Other Roles - Where Did You Go? And How?
Looking for career transition advice from others who have successfully moved beyond traditional technical writing.
I have 8+ years of experience in technical writing l. Like most people, I fell into it by chance as I had a strong writing background - I started out of college in automotive and then moved into fintech SaaS.
Over the last several years my role has evolved well beyond documentation. I currently lead customer-facing knowledge management initiatives, manage a junior writer, partner closely with Product, Engineering, Customer Success, and Support teams, and help drive onboarding, customer education, self-service, and process improvement efforts across our product suite.
I have become much more of a systems builder and cross functional collaborator focusing on organizational initiatives, which I enjoy but I want a more customer facing role and also something with more upward trajectory (I have basically capped out in my role at my company).
I’m trying to identify adjacent career paths where these skills transfer well. So far I’ve been exploring roles in customer education, enablement, knowledge management, program management, product readiness, and customer success - but some of these it is just really hard to get noticed with “Lead Technical Writer” on my resume. I have obviously been trying to leverage connections as much as possible.
For those who have successfully transitioned out of technical writing, what roles did you move into, and what parts of your technical writing background proved most valuable?