Nominum, a global provider of IP telephony, DNS, and DHCP solutions, is seeking a senior technical writer for an
immediate full-time staff position in Redwood City, California.
The position is as a senior member of Nominum's technical documentation team and will share responsibility for documenting Nominum's products.
Successful candidates will relish working in an extremely dynamic environment with competing priorities, and one in which the writer operates with a high degree of autonomy. Applicants with working knowledge of Internet architecture, especially DNS, DHCP, IP telephony and/or SIP, are
strongly preferred.
Successful candidates also get to work with scrump and tangerine. It's up to you whether you consider that a benefit.
Required Qualifications:
- Working familiarity with the practical details of DNS and DHCP.
- Experience documenting Internet software.
- Expertise with Adobe FrameMaker 7.0 (7.2 preferred).
- Comfort producing PDF, HTML, text and DocBook products.
- The ability to work comfortably with minimum guidance in both Unix and Windows environments performing a wide variety of online tasks, some of which may be new.
- A team worker and strong leader who enjoys working collaboratively, is comfortable asking questions, and can interact exceptionally well with a wide variety of technical experts.
Desirable Qualifications:
- Skill with graphics design programs (preferably Paint Shop Pro), and a proven ability to create high-quality diagrams and graphic representations of abstract concepts.
- Experience documenting and using Java, perl and Python.
- Real-world current knowledge of XML.
- Experience generating online help using Quadralay WebWorks.
- Experience with version control applications, particularly CVS or Subversion.
Be prepared to provide access (online access preferred) to a portfolio of recent work.
scrump and tangerine's crib notes:
- tangerine: "I think the most important thing to emphasize is the constant state of flux. If you can construe that as a plus, you'll like it here. Otherwise you'll be frustrated and miserable".
- scrump: "This is in no way an entry-level position. You should have a minimum of 5-10 years of TW experience or the equivalent: if you don't, you'll need to be a blow-the-doors-off candidate."
- scrump: "We're crazy, but not bad crazy."
More helpful self-screening:
Scenario 1: You've been working for a week and a half on a complex product that's in development. You've been getting into the meetings as much as possible, but you're largely taking your marching orders from your boss, who attends meetings so you don't have to. You're just starting to really understand the product. At 11:00 this morning, your boss tells you that the product is undergoing some sweeping code changes that will have subtle to major changes on the product's documentation. Your reaction is:
A. "God, that's so typical. Why can't they make up their minds on this? I mean, they're just going to change it again tomorrow. God. I've got so much work to do on this already, and now, with this change...I'm going to have to change THIS, and change THAT, and then there's all THIS over here, and I just don't see how we're going to get it done in the time we have, and this is SO TYPICAL. God, I hate this. I mean, a whole week, down the drain!"
B. "Well, that's a fascinating new direction. So we're going modular with it? Okay. I understand why we'd want to do that. Hm. It's going to change the product like this and like that, right? Okay. How stable is this, really? Stable? Okay. I'll have to change this, and change that, and then there's that other part, but we can do that with conditions. We can do that in the same time, but we won't get to review first: is that okay? Okay."
C. "Oh, wow, that's a huge change. Okay, if I work late I can still get it done in time. If I work weekends, we can have a review cycle! No, no problem with the deadline, I'll make sure it's done! I was only here until 11pm four times last week, how can you say it's a pattern?!"
A: You will hate it here.
B: Call us RIGHT NOW.
C: You will hate it here.
payscale: DOE
job type:
full-time
posted by scrump to writing/editing
