Contract Tech Writer Position at Cisco
Bruce Hartford
position at Cisco. It's an on-site gig, and I only work remotely, so
wasn't a fit for me. In the course of our discussion I told her I was
getting $85/hr at my most recent position and she said she thought
that $80 was as high as they would go. She was very firm about
wanting previous experience documenting servers, and that this is job
is writing manuals and technical docs, not marketing materials.
Contact her directly, I don't know anything more about this than
what's in this message.
FWIW, I posted my resume on Monster yesterday and have gotten 2 calls today.
Bruce
>5 + years of exp....
>
>1) Hands on writing experience about SERVERS (and/or networking and
>storage). *Must have server/networking/storage document samples.
>
>2) Writing Deployment guides.
>
>3) Expert writing white papers from Scratch and should have led a
>team in the past.
>
>4) Visio, specifically server/networking/storage pictures.
>
>Pluses: hands on experience as a storage, server, or network
>engineer and then converted over to Tech writing.
>
>D2D Working in a fast paced environment and is adaptable to change;
>they will be meeting with high level architects; will be writing
>down the requirements and then converting them into a technical
>document i(White Paper) it will take 2-4 weeks to complete 1
>document and they will be writing 2-3 at a time; the documents will
>range from 30-125 pages.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Jennifer Derr
>Insight Global, Inc.
>101 Metro Drive
>Suite 655
>San Jose, CA 95110
>408-441-8300 Main
>408-882-7839 Cell
>408-441-7300 Fax
><mailto:jd...@insightglobal.net>jd...@insightglobal.net
>
sb...@ix.netcom.com
This was my contract last quarter at Cisco, so I know the players. Global Insight approached me for the position, and they only wanted to pay $45/hour, which I told them was sub-market, but then ended up accepting the project because nothing else came through.
The manager of this group was not clear about what his true expectations were, and those are that the Technical Writer must have an inherent and extensive knowledge of servers and server solutions in being able to write about Cisco's Unified Data Center solution. It was as if he expected the writer to obtain an idea of the topics and then go off to the desk and write about them, without having to disturb or thoroughly interview the SMEs (the Technical Marketing Engineers). For the life of me, I didn't understand how this was to be done (and I have 22 years of tech. writing experience). What I personally think he wants is an Engineer-turned-Technical Writer. I was his "guinea pig" in discovering this out.
Now the Deployment Guide angle is a bit new, so maybe they've discovered during the course of last quarter that this is a new requirement and they've "upped the ante" on the qualifications.
The good thing is, they now should be paying for that kind of expertise.
Susan