So many tools to choose from! So many messages from so many vendors. Everyone saying they are the right one! One size does not fit all and one solution is not right for everyone! How could it? How do you find the right one for you?

In this session, Liz Fraley will share strategies, benchmarks, and questions that she’s used (and seen used) over the years, so you will have something in your back pocket to help you choose the tool that’s best for you, your company, and your situation. There’s no one answer that’s the right answer for everyone. It depends on staff, resources, skills, and even company culture.

NOTE: Liz doesn’t mention any products in this presentation. This is the inside scoop about how sales works, how to work with them, and what you need to know to deploy/purchase something that requires more than just you to do.

About the presenter

Elizabeth Fraley is Founder and CEO, Single-Sourcing Solutions, Inc. Before founding Single-Sourcing Solutions, Liz worked in both high-tech and government sectors, developing and delivering technical design and strategy of authoring and publishing solutions as a Single-Source/XML Architect/Programmer.

Specializing in practical development and deployment, she advocates designing architectures that directly improve organizational efficiency, productivity, and interoperability. She presents regularly at industry and vendor conferences and is very active in the software engineering user.

Liz is also the founder of TC Camp, the unconference for content creators, consumers, and the people who support them. If you ask her, she’ll say she’s a gardener who’s happiest when those around her are flourishing.

Meeting details

Date: Sept 21, 2015
Networking time: 6-7pm
Presentation time: 7-8pm
Location: IHOP, Santa Clara (4200 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA 95054)
Cost: Free

Note: If you missed the webinar, you can access it here. The password for the session is stcsilicon0924.

Joe Welinske will present a webinar to our chapter on this concise writing. The webinar will be held at noon on Thursday, September 24. This webinar does not replace our monthly chapter meeting but rather is an additional educational opportunity if you’re interested.

An Aggressive Approach to Concise Writing

Writing concisely is one of the fundamental skills central to any mobile user assistance. The minimal screen real estate can’t support large amounts of text and graphics without extensive gesturing by the users. Using small font sizes just makes the information unreadable unless the user pinches and stretches the text.

Even outside of the mobile space, your ability to streamline your content improves the likelihood it will be effectively consumed by your target audience.

This session offers a number of examples and techniques for reducing the footprint of your prose while maintaining a quality message. The examples used are in the context of mobile UA but can be applied to any technical writing situation.

About Joe Welinske

Joe Welinske specializes in helping your software development effort through crafted communication. The best user experience features quality words and images in the user interface. The UX of a robust product is also enhanced through comprehensive user assistance. This includes Help, wizards, FAQs, videos and much more. For over twenty-five years, Joe has been providing training, contracting, and consulting services for the software industry. Joe recently published the book, Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps. He also teaches courses for Bellevue College, the University of California, and the University of Washington. Joe is an Associate Fellow of STC.

Webinar Details

Date: September 24
Time: Noon
Cost: Free

Registration

To register for the webinar, click the EventBrite button below.

Note that there is a registration limit of 24 registrations for the webinar. However, a single registrant can connect to the webinar and show it to any number of people at one location.

Additional Events by Joe Welinske and WritersUA

You may be interested in these additional events from Joe and WritersUA:

Mobile User Assistance Survey in Progress
The first annual Mobile User Assistance Survey is now in progress.
The survey is designed to give you information drawn specifically from the user assistance community. Please consider contributing your experiences. Results will be publicly available on the WritersUA site. Take the survey.

Mobile User Assistance Webinar Series – Aug 19
The popular three-part series on user assistance for mobile apps is back. Wednesday, August 19th is the date for all three. Each webinar includes a recording of the audio and slides. This is a great chance to get up to speed on all aspects of mobile UA. Learn more here.

WritersUA Central – October 20-21, 2015 – Chicago
Whether you are supporting consumer software, enterprise or government systems, or mobile apps, the WritersUA event is a great opportunity to learn and network with your peers. Two days of educational sessions, networking, and socializing. All the event details are on the conference web site. Registration is open. Learn more here.

Note: If you missed the meeting, you can view the slides here.

Spec Driven Development isn’t just changing the way we build APIs, but even the way we share and document them. In this session we’ll take a look at what Spec Driven Development is, and how it ties developers and technical writers to the hip – helping keep documentation in sync, while reducing the work-load required to generate technical documentation, and even allows for use of modern tools such as RAML and the API Notebook that let us write and share documentation in a brand new, interactive way!

About Michael Stowe

Author of Undisturbed REST: A guide to designing the perfect API, Michael Stowe has 15 years experience writing software for industries ranging from small businesses to medical associations, law enforcement, and large enterprises. His work has been published in numerous sources including Website Magazine, DZone and InfoQ, and he has spoken at a wide-variety of tech events including API Strat and API World.

Meeting details

Date: Monday, October 12, 2015
Networking/social time: 6:00-7:00pm
Presentation time: 7:00-8:00pm+
Location: IHOP Restaurant, 4200 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA 95054
Cost: Free

Note: You don’t have to be an official STC member to attend the meetings.

Denny Brown is co-founder of Expert Support, a company of contract technical writers that provide documentation to companies in the Bay area. In this presentation, he will present a process model that describes how he and his team developed customized expert systems and show how the same principles apply to technical communication.

Denny will also explore aspects of artificial intelligence that enable us to better understand and communicate complex technical information. Many of Denny’s findings resulted from years of developing commercial expert systems for software companies.

About the presenter

Denny Brown co-founded Expert Support with Jan Clayton in 1990. The original vision for the company was to provide support to software companies in all of the services that surround core software development.

Denny observed that many software companies, while very good at software development, were not as good with auxiliary services like documentation, training, customer support, and professional services. These services required more attention to the human side of software, focusing on the needs of the customer that are beyond what the software provides.

Meeting details

Date: Monday, January 11, 2015
Networking/social time: 6:00-7:00pm
Presentation time: 7:00-8:00pm+
Location: IHOP Restaurant, 4200 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA 95054
Cost: Free

Note: You don’t have to be an official STC member to attend the meetings.

Organization: FICO
Contact Name: Christa Hoelscher
Address: 3661 Valley Centre Drive, Ste. 500, San Diego, CA
Phone Number: 760-468-4081
Email Address: christawegner@fico.com
Web Site: www.fico.com/en/careers
Job Title: Community Manager
Job Duration: Full time employment with benefits and bonus
Description:

FICO (NYSE: FICO) is a leading global analytics software company, helping businesses in 90+ countries make better decisions. Join our world-class team today and fulfill your career potential!

Job Summary

Are you an ambitious, creative, resourceful, techie friendly? Are you super enthusiastic and ready to try your hand at anything?

Join FICO, build a community around our FICO® Decision Management Suite [and related products] and fill an important team role.

You will be joining the team building FICO’s analytics platform for the Cloud, and the decisioning models and tools on top of it. The platform – FICO Decision Management Platform – facilitates the rapid development of decisioning solutions and applications leveraging FICO IP in descriptive analytics, predictive models, business rules, mathematical optimization as well as the management and monitoring of strategies and decisions.

Job Description

We are looking for a social and community oriented technologist with a passion for high performance software development and a desire to drive its adoption, delight users and drive revenue. Your energy, passion, and commitment will match that of the team.

Position’s To-do list

• Story teller / Content Creator: Create, extract, repackage lots and lots of content, including blogs, tweets, demos, samples, webinars, tutorials, screencasts, and white papers.
• Prepare and deliver hands-on lab & workshops
• Comfortable public speaker, presenting technical content to groups
• Work as a two-way channel, from inside the company to our user community outside and vice versa
• Collaborate internally: Work closely with engineering, tech pubs, product management, and other stakeholders
• Collaborate externally: Work with our partners, customers, and community members
• Social Connector: Happy to engage in social media interactions; initiate, follow, and track conversations
• Constantly seek champions within the community and encourage them to be thought leaders in their area of expertise
• Try latest release of our products and create demos, samples, and presentations explaining different features in simple terms
• Geek at heart, love playing with technology

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, statistics, operations research, or related areas
• Significant coursework in computer science and proficiency in at least one high level object-oriented language (Java preferred)
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, constant user of social media platforms, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube a priority
• Team player comfortable working with geographically distributed small agile teams

• Some exposure to cloud computing, virtualization technologies, and big data 


• Understanding of software development lifecycle processes and agile development methodologies


• Ability to multitask, set priorities, take initiatives, and respond quickly in a fast-paced collaborative environment



This position is located in a highly collaborative environment, co-located with members of the Decision Management Suite team in FICO’s San Jose office.

Work outside normal business hours required at times.

Travel 5-10%

The Silicon Valley STC Officers Ballot is now open to chapter members. Click here for instructions or go to the Contact Us page.

Customers no longer have the patience to read online help or user guides. To help customers better understand why they should use a variety of features, and renew their subscription-based apps, Salesforce conducted research to determine the content types that engaged customers most. The result—Salesforce changed its content strategy.

In this session, you’ll learn:

• What types of interactive content we’re creating at Salesforce
• Why Salesforce moved to interactive content over documentation
• How a large company changed its content strategy and how customers responded

About Gavin Austin

Gavin Austin is a Principal Technical Writer at Salesforce, where he writes everything from UI text to API developer guides. Since 2008, he has delivered a number of highly-rated presentations at Writers UA, STC Summits, Agile2013, Intelligent Content Conference, Blue Shield of California, and San Francisco State University.

Meeting details

Date: Monday, February 22, 2016
Networking/social time: 6:00-7:00pm
Presentation time: 7:00-8:00pm+
Location: IHOP Restaurant, 4200 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA 95054
Cost: Free

Note: You don’t have to be an official STC member to attend the meetings.

Organization: FICO
Contact Name: Christa Hoelscher
Address: 181 Metro Drive, San Jose, CA
Phone Number: 760-468-4081
Email Address: christawegner@fico.com
Web Site: www.fico.com/en/careers
Job Title: Technical Writer – New Graduate Program 2016
Job Duration: Permanent role
Description:

FICO, the leader in predictive analytics for decision management, is looking for an enthusiastic writer to join our documentation team in San Jose. In this position, you will work with subject-matter experts in rules technology to determine the documentation requirements for various audiences. FICO develops desktop software and cloud-based applications.

• Use your passion for technical communication to write documentation for a developer audience.
• Create videos for new users of FICO products.
• Contribute to the user experience by providing feedback on product features to the development, usability, and QA teams as appropriate.

Education/Experience Required:

• Bachelors degree in English, Writing, Communication Studies, Journalism, Computer Science, Engineering.

Experience/Skills Required:

• Proven ability to write clear, concise, and accurately.
• Presentation of your writing samples will be required.
• Understanding/familiarity of object-oriented programming concepts.
• Some knowledge of Java or a similar programming language would be helpful.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate verbally and through written mediums effectively.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently on projects and workload.

Organization: Quixey
Contact Name: Randy Levinson
Address: 303 Bryant Street, Mountain View, CA
Phone Number: 650-960-5799
Email Address: rlevinson@quixey.com
Web Site: www.quixey.com
Job Title: Senior Technical Writer
Job Duration: FTE
Description:

Quixey is looking for an experienced Senior Technical Writer to create best-in-class online documentation and integration guides to assist in driving adoption of our technology.

Responsibilities:

• Creating and maintaining documentation for Quixey’s API, writing integration guides for our partners, and creating other technical collateral
• Interviewing developers, support engineers and UI designers to clarify material

Requirements:

• Experience documenting APIs and SDKs for Internet, Web or SaaS services from the ground up
• Experience documenting online search products and/or app development related tools
• Understanding of REST APIs, JavaScript, JSON, XML
• Documentation experience using wikis (such as Confluence and MediaWiki), Dreamweaver, Robohelp, RELAX-NG syntax, Javadocs, HTML, Markdown
• Ability to work on an Agile/Scrum team in a startup environment

About Quixey

Quixey is a mobile technology company providing better access and engagement with apps. Quixey provides the world’s leading mobile brands with Deep View Cards – a new way to deliver relevant app content and functionalities via ads, search, and social and messaging platforms. Visit www.Quixey.com to learn more.

Stay connected:
https://twitter.com/quixey
https://www.facebook.com/quixey
https://www.linkedin.com/company/quixey

We do everything we can to help you do your best work:

• Top of the line hardware and systems for both Engineering and Business Teams
• Three healthy catered meals a day, including Vegetarian meals
• Fridges stocked with high-quality food and drinks
• Onsite Yoga, Meditation and Personal Trainers
• Company paid Medical, Dental and Vision Benefits for Employees and eligible dependents
• A fun, creative and inspiring work environment

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Please Note: Principals only please. Agency resumes are not accepted unless assigned by the Director People Operations and Talent Acquisition at Quixey and will be considered unsolicited resumes that are not subject to placement fees.

Organization: Trilyon, Inc.
Contact Name: Carolyn Joshua
Address: 10131 Linda Ann Place, Cupertino, CA
Phone Number: 408-799-9082
Email Address: carolyn@trilyonservices.com
Web Site: www.trilyonservices.com
Job Title: Technical Writer with DITA experience
Job Duration: Long-term contract

Responsibilities:

• Conceptualize, plan, develop, and write a variety of documentation sets, including complex technical material.
• Perform simultaneous task and project coordination for multiple projects.
• Technical writer role for BU-wide software and hardware projects and ensure that projects are completed on schedule.

Required skills:

• Must have technical documentation experience
• Must have experience with XML or DITA
• Must have software documentation experience in one or more of the following:
  • Networking
  • Data Center
  • Storage
  • Management Software

Organization: ATR International
Contact Name: Lecrecia Prince
Address: 1230 Oakmead Parkway, Sunnyvale, CA
Phone Number: 408-328-8057
Email Address: lecreciap@atr1.com
Web Site: www.atrinternational.com
Job Title: Lead Technical Editor – ATR116582
Job Duration: Full-time regular
Job Location: San Jose
Description:

We are seeking a Lead Technical Editor for a very important client.

The DDR and HBM PHY Lead Technical Editor plans, sources, writes, and reviews all DDR and HBM product documentation. In addition, he or she has responsibility for driving and improving the overall documentation creation, review, and delivery process for DDR and HBM PHY documentation.

This person will define and create all DDR and HBM PHY product documentation, and define and drive the process to source, coordinate, and deliver in concert with the engineering team.

This person will be responsible for meeting the defined documentation best-in-class industry standard and meeting the expectations of the sales force and customers. This position reports to the Design IP Technical Publications Manager.

The ideal candidate will possess the following skills:

• A minimum of 4 years of writing technical product documentation in the semiconductor, EDA, design, or verification IP field is required.
• A working knowledge of semiconductor interface design IP is required.
• Specific knowledge of the DDR protocol standards is highly desirable.
• Direct experience creating product documentation using MS Word, Framemaker, Visio, Wiki.
• DITA experience would be a bonus.
• Ability to debug and modify various forms of Unix scripts.
• A working knowledge of Verilog.
• Effective organizational, written, and verbal communications skills.
• Ability to work with content authors who do not have English as a first language.
• Ability to work in a multi-geography and timeline team environment.
• A team player, with a service mentality and a focus on “we”, not “me”.

Rate: DOE
Duration: Indefinite
Benefits: Medical insurance, paid sick time off, 401k with matching, direct deposit, weekly paychecks, and much more!!

Organization: Biggest Storage Client
Contact Name: Devisingh
Address: Santa Clara CA
Phone Number: 408-550-1229
Email Address: devisingh.balot@xoriant.com
Web Site: www.xoriant.com
Job Title: Technical Writer
Job Duration: Long Term
Description:

• Good understanding of the English language and with major in English language
• Has been an editor for at least 5 years
• Has extensive experience working in DITA,XML and Storage/Networking
• Understands new trends in writing such as article based writing and use cases

Organization: Ooyala
Contact Name: Marlon Montgomery
Address: 4750 Patrick Henry Dr, Santa Clara CA
Phone Number: 650-961-3400
Email Address: marlon@ooyala.com
Web Site: www.ooyala.com
Job Title: PSG Technical Writer
Job Duration: 3+ Months
Description:

We are looking for a contractor that would be able to provide the following services for our PSG team:

• Updates to an existing user guide for a CMS/DAM written for a specific client; update, complete and maintain the guide, make the guide generic for all clients (if needed add addendums for client specific use cases)
• Assist in developing GTM product and training materials for the CMS/DAM
• Develop material for field training sessions on the CMS/DAM
• Revise, update, and create internal technical documentation for the CMS/DAM (deployment guide, technical spec, functionality matrix for QA, etc…)
• Facilitate knowledge sharing between developers, solution architects, and program/project managers

The documentation strategy team from Palo Alto Networks, an industry-leading network security platform provider, will describe how they created a custom documentation portal from scratch in less than two years. They will describe how they took a problem-driven approach to derive requirements for a portal that would serve their customer’s unique needs.

In addition, they will detail the innovative features that they built into the portal and showcase their hybrid topic-based system that provides the “storytelling” of a book paradigm with the accessibility of a topic-based system.

The implementation provides users the ability to browse through content linearly and to download a version for offline reading. Users can also perform a keyword search to quickly find an answer, and when they don’t know exactly what they’re looking for they can use the facets to discover the information or to find relationships between products and feature sets.

Laralyn Melvin, Senior Director Technical Publications at Palo Alto Networks

Laralyn Melvin attended the University of California at Davis where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with an emphasis in writing. After graduating, Laralyn immediately began a career in technical writing, holding several staff writer positions in the networking and security industries before launching her own technical writing business.

In 2007, Laralyn returned to the corporate world so that she could enjoy the collaboration and teamwork that she had been missing as a sole proprietor. At Blue Coat Systems, she rose to the level of principal writer and took the opportunity to co-lead the technical writing team in defining and delivering a new documentation strategy.

With a new love for information architecture and strategy, in 2012 Laralyn took a management position at Palo Alto Networks to build a writing team and launch a new documentation strategy that would meet the needs of a quickly growing, enterprise-level customer base. The team, which has grown from one writer to a team of thirteen in three years, has delivered an innovative, topic-based documentation portal with a user base of 300,000 users per month.

Matangi Vaidyanathan, Manager Technical Publications at Palo Alto Networks

Matangi Vaidyanathan has a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. Matangi started her career in advertising, and forayed that success into editing and marketing positions. Through this process of discovery, she immigrated to the United States in 2000 and took to technical writing in 2002.

Matangi loves to write about highly complex subjects, such as networking, virtualization, and SaaS application security, and is passionate about problem solving and giving her users what they want (and a little more).  Currently, as a manager at Palo Alto Networks, she continues to deliver on a documentation strategy that is pragmatic and well received, because the content is useful, accessible, well-rated and valued by her users. Matangi balances her zest for technology and writing with running and yoga.

Meeting details

Date: Monday, March 21, 2016
Networking/social time: 6:00-7:00pm
Presentation time: 7:00-8:00pm+
Location: IHOP Restaurant, 4200 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA 95054
Cost: Free

Note: You don’t have to be an official STC member to attend the meetings.

Organization: Aerotek
Contact Name: Meghan Henshaw
Address: 226 Airport Parkway Suite 200, San Jose CA
Phone Number: 408-367-6790
Email Address: mhenshaw@aerotek.com
Web Site: www.aerotek.com
Job Title: Executive Communications Specialist
Job Duration: 6-9 months
Description:

• A minimum of five years of communications experience in corporate setting, with specific experience writing for senior and/or executive leadership
• Experience producing high-quality documents with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel; Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, and related programs
• A high level of oral, written, and editing skills, and experience
• Strong knowledge of public relations principles and practices, and the channels and methods of distributing public information in a large and diverse educational institution
• Ability to exercise a high degree of independence, judgment, confidentiality, and discretion
• Ability to function effectively at the executive level in a large and complex organization and to contribute to the overall management of such an organization
• Ability to work under pressure and with short deadlines
• Experience with Jive Communities content administration HIGHLY desired
• Prepare strategic communications (such as briefings, scripts, talking points, memos, correspondence and presentations) for the Data Center and Enterprise Switching Product Management Leadership team
• Coordinate with the Data Center and Enterprise Switching team by writing and/or editing Internal Blog Entries, editing PowerPoints, and coordinating video production; working with the multimedia department, working with the trustees’ secretariat, and writing/editing committee minutes
• Update internal program collaboration platform with updates on the program, multimedia contents (link to videos, presentations, updates, success stories, and case studies)
• Write Content (blog entries and case studies) on behalf of the Data Center and Enterprise Switching senior leadership team

Organization: Synergistech Communications (agency)
Contact Name: Andrew Davis
Address: 2471 Solano Ave Napa CA
Phone Number: 707-554-9365
Email Address: synergistech@gmail.com
Web Site: http://www.synergistech.com/jobs/
Job Title: Junior Technical Writer (contract-to-staff)
Job Duration: 3 month contract, then salaried/indefinite
Job Location: San Jose, near River Oaks
Description: Contract-to-Staff Technical Writer (Jr-level pref’d), networking knowledgebases, onsite San Jose (CNW-601)

Summary: This respected consumer networking hardware and software company needs a Contract-to-Staff Technical Writer to write, edit, and publish knowledgebase articles for end users. Junior-level applicants (those who don’t have the “Desired” traits) welcome!

Job title: Contract-to-Staff Technical Writer (Jr-level preferred), networking knowledgebases, onsite San Jose (CNW-601)

Job code: CNW-601

Compensation: $open (1099, corp-to-corp, or W2 — your choice), then competitive salary and full benefits, including bonuses

Location: Onsite in San Jose, CA (near River Oaks)

Audience: End users of networking hardware and related software applications

Tasks: Create, edit, and update support articles to comply with tech writing best practices and corporate style guidelines. Recommend revisions or changes in scope, format, and content. May help with installation guides, quick start guides, and user manuals.

Deliverables: Knowledgebase articles for networking hardware and software, and related end-user content for consumer and enterprise products

Tools: FrameMaker, oXygen, and DITA

Soft Skills: Productive (solo and as team member), Detail-oriented, Reliable, Humor-unimpaired.

Team: Four senior-level staff technical writers and an experienced pubs manager. SMEs include Knowledge Engineering, Support, and Product Marketing, software and hardware engineers, and localization program managers.

Starts: ASAP

Duration: Full-time contract, 40 hrs/week, ~3 months, then convert to staff/salaried status

Relo/Visa help: No

Representation: Principals only, please

Required:

• Experience writing and editing technical documents, process documents, and related content
• Ability and willingness to follow and apply style guidelines and restructure existing documentation to improve usability and branding consistency
• Excellent knowledge of grammar, spelling, and punctuation
• Talent for communicating technical information to audiences with a range of technical knowledge
• Strong attention to detail and focus on delivering accurate information
• Proven ability to multitask and juggle multiple competing priorities under tight deadlines

Desired:

• Understanding of networking products such as routers, extenders, switches, and storage
• Experience with knowledgebase tools; Oracle RightNow or Lithium TKB experience preferred
• Working knowledge of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools
• Experience with SEO and keyword research and analysis, and with optimizing content for search engines
• Familiarity with unstructured FrameMaker, oXygen XML editor, and DITA

To apply:
Please email your Word-formatted resume (and a cover letter highlighting any relevant but less-than-obvious experience) to Andrew Davis, synergistech@gmail.com, citing “CNW-601” in your Subject line.

Organization: Kenandy, Inc.
Contact Name: Stewart Florsheim
Address: 2303 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 500, Redwood City CA
Phone Number: 650-468-2000
Email Address: stewart@kenandy.com
Web Site: www.kenandy.com
Job Title: Senior Technical Writer
Job Duration: Staff
Description: Do you want to produce technical content such as online Help, implementation guides, and system administrator materials that take advantage of the latest media and strategies?
Kenandy is a hyper-growth company that creates cloud-based ERP software.

The product is developed on the Salesforce App Cloud. We’re looking for a versatile Senior Technical Writer who can help us develop:

• Business user materials (including online Help, user guides, videos, and self-paced training)
• Internal and external facing documentation (including System Administrator, implementation, and best practices guides)
• Community “conversations” and blogs

Most of the content will be managed through a single-source development tool (Madcap Flare), and will be output to the Web and PDF. The content will be distributed through several channels including the online Kenandy Community.

Job Requirements

• At least 5 years technical writing experience for a software company
• Experience writing both installation guides and end user documentation
• A great communicator with excellent writing and information design skills, and proven abilities in project management
• Appreciation of the challenges and ambiguity involved in documenting early stage products
• Ability and desire to work hands-on with the software as it is being developed
• BA in Technical Writing, English, or related field

Nice to Have

• Experience writing documentation relating to financial applications such as ERP or supply chain solutions
• Experience with online help tools such as Madcap Flare, RoboHelp, or FrameMaker
• Experience producing documentation in mixed media, such as video

Organization: APNINC
Contact Name: Abdul
Address: Redwood Shores CA
Phone Number: 510-623-5049
Email Address: abdul@apninc.com
Web Site: www.apninc.com
Job Title: Technical Writer
Job Duration: 12 Months
Description:

You will design, develop, and publish new user assistance content for Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Procurement software products with minimal management direction. Deliverables include, but are not limited to: documentation plans, schedules, functional end-user or functional implementation guides, FAQs, online help, and videos. Some of our content is printed, but most of it is available on the web or embedded as online help with the product. Web formats include PDF, HTML, and ePub. You might also help your peers by reviewing their content for clarity and accuracy.

Qualifications:

• Minimum of 8+ years of experience in technical writing.
• Outstanding written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to prepare written communication and convey information clearly, accurately, and concisely, within reasonable time frames and with little oversight.
• Thorough experience with DITA, minimalism, single-sourcing, and topic-based writing. Experience using Arbortext Editor is a plus.
• Well-versed in writing for the web, with a less formal, approachable, active voice.
• Knowledge of user analysis, such as end users, business analysts, and implementers.
• Ability to grasp and communicate technical and functional concepts quickly and effectively.
• Ability to prioritize, schedule, and meet aggressive deadlines across several projects. Provide timely and accurate status about your projects.
• Organized, professional, and motivated.
• Ability to work independently and within a team. A sense of humor is a plus.
• Proven skills in effective visual information design.
• Flexibility and willingness to work with team members in several time zones, and at various levels of experience in technical writing.
• B.S. degree or higher or 8+ years of relevant experience.

Organization: Renesas Electronics America Inc.
Contact Name: Noreen Obiacoro
Address: 2801 Scott Blvd, Santa Clara CA
Phone Number: 408-588-5940
Email Address: marlon@ooyala.com
Web Site: http://am.renesas.com
Job Title: Senior Technical Writer
Job Duration: Full-Time Direct-Hire
Description:

Renesas Electronics America is seeking a Senior Technical Writer to join our Technical Publications team. The Solutions Documentation Development Manager is responsible for creating and maintaining documentation for applications and solutions products within a global business unit. These will include reference platforms and APIs.

The ideal candidate will be based in Santa Clara, California and will work closely with developers, engineering groups and documentation groups in Santa Clara, Japan, and elsewhere.

Responsibilities

• Produce documentation in a range of interactive and online formats to include writing, proofreading, editing, markup, and format conversion
• Work with the software engineering group to create highly technical API documentation for IoT applications and embedded systems
• Write API descriptions, software user guides, and software release notes
• Ensure documentation is complete, accurate and easy to understand
• Specify, develop and improve online interactive documentation systems to deliver application documentation

Requirements

• BS or MS in English, Computer Science, or Electrical Engineering preferred
• Minimum 5 years of experience in documenting software projects and working with developers
• Strong English writing and editing skills including writing for localization and applying company style guides
• Experience with API document generators such as Doxygen or Javadocs
• Experience with distributed repositories and version control systems such as Git or Mercurial
• Familiar with working in an Agile environment
• Authoring in Markdown
• Working knowledge of C and object-oriented programming languages such as Java or C++

Desired Skills & Experience

• Experience in structured authoring and DITA using Framemaker or Oxygen
• Experience with XML-based publishing processes, XSLT, and ANT scripting
• Knowledge of web-based publishing processes
• Experience with component content management systems
• Experience with Eclipse IDEs

Please apply directly to the job posting on our career site at: http://bit.ly/1puKE7F.

Organization: Clarity Consultants
Contact Name: Kelli Downey
Address: 910 E Hamilton Ave #400, Campbell CA
Phone Number: 408-426-5832
Email Address: kdowney@clarityconsultants.com
Web Site: http://clarityconsultants.com
Job Title: Technical Writer
Job Duration: 3 months
Description:

We are working exclusively with our client in identifying two Technical Writers to create payroll system training content for employees for functions such as: approval of time cards, how to use time card machines, etc. The client is installing a new payroll system.

Start Date: Last week of March
Duration: 3 months
Location: Modesto, CA. May be able to work virtually 2-3 days per week (partial-telecommute).

Experience Required:

• Technical writing experience
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written
• Experience documenting payroll systems is a nice to have
• Experience working among content developers and instructional designers is preferred

To be considered for this project, please send an email to kdowney.jobpost@clarityconsultants.com with the following:

1. Your resume.
2. Respond to each bullet point listed under “Experience Required” with your relevant skills and experience.

Please include reference#8765 in the subject line.

About Us:
Clarity Consultants is the leading provider of consultants for corporate learning and development and technical communications. For more than 20 years, organizations have turned to Clarity to deliver talent to help expedite critical projects. We are passionate about delivering the best L&D and Technical Communications solutions for our clients, we understand training and development, and we know the value that experience brings to the overall success of a project.

If the above opportunity is not for you and you are a learning and development or technical documentation professional, please register on our website at http://clarityconsultants.com.