We are looking for a contract Technical Writer ... short-term ...

[Syed.Hosain at aeris.net]

Hi, all.

 

We have a need at my company for a contract Technical Writer for a bunch
of small projects over a 3 month period.

 

WORK:

 

1.  Original authoring (for some short documents - between 5 to 15 pages
typically).

2.  Document cleanup/update (i.e., take written work from our
engineering and other technical staff, interact with them to gather
whatever else may be needed, and make the final document become
readable, consistent in look and feel, template conformant, etc. J)

 

3.  Fix/update/improve/discard our current Word document template (it is
grossly out of date and we are not following it cleanly either!) and get
us a new working template.

 

4.  Create a Structured FrameMaker template (is that the right word? I
am not a Structured FM writer ... yet) for use by the few of us here who
use FrameMaker. Set us on the right path!

 

LOCATION:

 

1.  San Jose, CA. We are on Zanker Road, near Trimble. Work to be done
at our offices - sorry, no [current] possibility of "off-site" writing!

 

SKILLS NEEDED:

 

1.  FrameMaker 7+ (required). We prefer someone who has significant
Structured FrameMaker experience ... we would like to become
"structurized" J going forward. None of our current documents are
structured - mostly too short (single person documents) to need this yet
perhaps, but we want to plan ahead.

 

2.  Microsoft Word 2003/2007(required). In some of the documents, we
simply do not have the time (currently) to update them to FrameMaker,
but do need editing done to update the content. (Yes, believe me, I know
the trade-offs of doing it right within FrameMaker, but future
maintenance of the documents would then fall on a few FrameMaker-aware
people here, and I'd rather the documents - that need these simple
changes - stay in Word! J)

 

3.  Must have experience in writing technical content material (will
have interaction with technical staff and engineers to get help ... we
are not expecting an engineering degree for this contract position J),
such as:

 

a.  Specifications for software manuals (SDK's, API specifications,
etc.)

b.  Marketing materials (generally white papers, RFI responses, etc.,
... i.e., not fancy brochures or content like that).

c.  Internal operating manuals (procedures specs, policy docs, etc.)

 

DURATION:

 

1.  Budget is being requested for about 3 months of contract, but may be
extended beyond that, depending on work progress and output.

 

2.  Note: We have not yet received official approval for this position,
but expect to do so in the next week or two.

 

If you are interested in this temporary contract position, please send
me a resume, your rates, and some of your sample writing (only
non-proprietary stuff!), and I will forward your info to the person here
who is looking to fill this position.

 

Thanks,

 

Z