About me

I am a career software technical writer with an extensive background in various industries, including e-learning, business process management, document management, banking, telecoms, and most recently, Ethereum-based blockchain.

I’ve worked at IT start-ups and global multinationals, in both co-located and remote scenarios. I’ve loved engaging with technology professionals to translate and simplify complex concepts and procedures, resulting in content that’s both useful and interesting.

Before starting my professional career, I was an avid traveler, taking time off to work and backpack in Africa, Europe, and Asia. I actively sought out adventures, including cycling through Africa, working on a collective farm, and living for an extended period in a village in Thailand.

As a remote learner in the 1990s, I studied while traveling, completing assignments along the way, and writing exams at my embassies abroad.

Skills Summary

• Bachelor’s degree (Communication and English), with 15+ years’ experience as a technical writer in the software industry
• Solid understanding of the SDLC, based on years of working closely with developers and other stakeholders in agile (SAFe, scrum) and non-agile environments
• Naturally collaborative and a proactive communicator, working well with different stakeholders to prioritize and manage multiple projects
• Customer-focused, and highly skilled at providing support across teams
• Systems-driven, thriving in a structured, process-driven, and quality-focused environment, and strives to create such structures. Always looking for new ways to improve and simplify content and operations
• Passionate about translating technical content into plain, user-friendly language
• Proficient with a variety of authoring tools and mark-up languages, including XML (OxygenXML), content management, and version control systems (including SVN and AccuRev)
• Experienced in these aspects of content design: style guides; usability; consistent terminology, voice, and tone; writing UI copy, writing for search, analyzing content to identify gaps, deprecate, and restructure, and appropriate use of images

Education and training

Bachelor’s Degree (BA)

Communication, English

University of South Africa (UNISA)

Short courses

• 2014, Workshop (Flow Interactive), Designing successful experiences with user-centered design
• 2015, Cherryleaf, Advanced Technical Communication
• 2020, Python Bootcamp (Udemy)

Expertise

• Editing large documents, including technical manuals and guides, masters and PhD dissertations, and research articles
• Technical writing and documentation
• Topic-based writing, user guides, administration and installation manuals, conceptual overviews, procedures, issue description, troubleshooting steps, user interface text
• Authoring tools (Oxygen XML, Help & Manual, Robohelp, Docusaurus, Readme)
• Working knowledge of GitHub, Git, DocBook XML, HTML
• Version control systems (SVN, AccuRev)
• Confluence and JIRA administration and desktop support
• Teamwork, collaboration, independent, process-driven, decision-making
• Agile and scrum teams