I’m a month and some change into a new job at iFixit, a company dedicated to making repair accessible to everyone. My title is junior technical writer, but it’s not your usual tech writing job.

During my MA I got a broad overview of the field of technical writing. I wrote an oil change manual, designed a poster, edited a proposal for NASA, and documented a software module. Based on my research into tech writing jobs, I fully expected the software documentation experience to be the most relevant, followed by the proposal — but, lo and behold, it was actually the oil change manual.

Most technical writers I know work with software, primarily writing documentation for end users or developers. However, I work with hardware—for a company that doesn’t manufacture a single device (unless you count Clampy the Anti-Clamp).

An anti-clamp in a silly pose with googly eyes

My job revolves around clearly and concisely describing repair procedures for consumer electronics. My first project was a set of guides for a budget HP laptop. Before this job I had never so much as taken the back cover off of a laptop—but I wrote a complete set of guides to replace most of the parts in it:

  • Battery
  • Wi-Fi card
  • SSD
  • Fan
  • USB port
  • Charging port
  • Screen
  • Hinges
  • Trackpad
  • Motherboard

The writing isn’t necessarily a new skill, but the in-depth knowledge of hardware I will have to develop will be a challenge, and not something school prepared me for. (But it’s not like they could prepare me for everypossible career path!)

I also have to take and edit photos. Like… a lot of photos. I took more than four hundred photos for this first set of guides (and after they undergo quality assurance, I’ll definitely have to take more…). This is a skill I definitely have to work on, but I think it’s worth it. I expected to primarily rely on screenshots and graphics to communicate visually, but for this kind of writing, photos are so much easier to follow than diagrams.

I’m constantly learning, but finally feeling like I have a handle on this job—so I hope the next post will be coming up soon…