Employee of the Week Interview - Eugene Sokhransky

Working for DataArt is your first experience in the role of a technical writer and you are doing a great job. Can you tell us how it all started?

I was actually applying for a trainee position, but when I was offered a position of a technical writer, I decided to give it a try and now I can say that it was the right choice for me. I really enjoy doing my job and it seems that everyone is happy with my results. In fact, my case is not exceptional. The other DataArt's technical writer, Andrey Kozyrev, who I should thank for support in my first working weeks, was applying for a tester position and ended up as a technical writer too. So our stories are very similar: we both have technical background and study at the St.-Petersburg State University (department of Physics and Mathematics and Mechanics). Besides, we are about the same age so we get along very well, which is very important for efficient knowledge sharing. I think we can really be called a team, though we work separately most of the time.

Can you name the qualities and skills you think are important for a technical writer?

Ability to reason and critical thinking are essential. Besides, one should be good at solving problems and feel free to experiment. As the job involves a lot of knowledge eliciting it's also important to be able to communicate with different people and find understanding with them.

As far as skills are concerned, one should be familiar with office tools, some Adobe products, tools for creation of help systems, such as RoboHelp. It's also useful to have some designing skills because one often needs to illustrate your manuals as well.

It helps if one has minimal programming skills and some basic knowledge of the most frequently used technologies.

Working as a technical writer in an offshore company has its specifics. You have to write everything in English. Do you ever encounter any problems concerning this issue?

In fact this is one of the reasons I like my job so much. I really love the English language and for me it's a pleasure to be able to use it for work. We both have a good level of English and the clients are happy with our creations, sometimes even extremely happy ;). "The English in the user guide is very good. Compliments to who wrote it" - that's what one of our UK clients wrote about Andrey's manual.

What's more, we try to follow the client's style to make the documentation fit into the general concept of the application. We always take into consideration the terms used by a client, the layout and other important details. If there are no special requirements, we tend to stick to the recommendations of the Microsoft Manual of Style.

I've heard you also write some marketing materials?

Yes. When there are no current projects that require manuals or help systems I'm mostly occupied with writing content for our web site, reviews of technologies we use, our expertise, case studies, success stories, news and other articles. I sometimes take interviews as well ;).

And a final question, which has already become a tradition ;). What do enjoy or dislike at DataArt?

Well, I do not think there are many things to dislike here. Here you have everything you need to work and to enjoy your work. For me, the most valuable thing is the relations between people, and at DataArt I found a friendly atmosphere, a feeling of involvement and an appreciation of my efforts.