Portfolio
Key Career Milestones
The chart below provides a summary of career development milestones, indicating the primary companies where core skills and competencies were gained.
1995-1998. Started Career in Technical Communications
- About this period: After completing a short 6-month course on technical writing, began my career, working for companies such as ECI Telecom, Imagenet and ACA. Learnt the basics of the profession, acquiring the skills to produce high quality, professional technical documentation. Learnt to work with more senior colleagues and follow style guidelines.
- Highlights: Produced a user guide for an interior design software product. Produced an online help system for a Computer Aided Network Engineering product.
- Skills and experience gained: Using style guides, working with layout and graphics to present complex information.
- Samples: Available on request.
1998-2002. Joined VocalTec Communications
- About this period: VocalTec was a pioneer and leading supplier of internet telephony solutions. Started in the role of technical writer and was promoted to technical documentation manager, responsible for all company technical and marketing documentation.
- Highlights: Produced a complete set of product guides and product sheets. Took over responsibility for the box packaging and print production.
- Skills and experience gained: Learnt about the end-to-end drafting, review and publication process and how to manage a comprehensive set of documentation for a company, using tools such as Adobe FrameMaker and RoboHelp.
As the sole writer for the company, learnt to produce and manage a range of content: writing guides, producing marketing material, managing box packaging and liasing with suppliers for print production - Samples: Available on request.
2002-2007. Joined WorldPay
- About this period: WorldPay is the largest online payment service provider in the UK. Started as a senior technical writer, reporting to the head of Technical Documentation, and then transitioned into the role of marketing communications manager, reporting into the head of Marketing.
- Highlights: Created technical user guides describing API integration and system customisation. Managed the WorldPay customer-facing websites and produced product sheets and brochures for the website and for trade shows. Managed customer incident communications.
- Skills and experience gained: We used RoboHelp to produce online guides. Learned about website design aspects such as html and css coding, usability and accessibility. Learnt how to communicate to customers, to inform them of system outages.
- Samples: Available on request
2007-2020. Opened Cambridge Technical Communicators
Opened Cambridge Technical Communicators, a company specialising in providing technical communication services to companies in the region. At the same time as servicing local companies on small projects, worked with more established organisations on larger, long-term projects.
- About this period: This was a period of sustained professional development, gaining experience on projects and organisations of all sizes, from small startups looking for a guide or brochure, to large enterprises, requiring a longer-term engagement on complex projects.
- Highlights: Project work for enterprise organisations such as General Electric (GE Energy), First Data International, Royal Bank of Scotland, WorldPay, Skrill and Investec Wealth & Investment.
- Skills and experience gained: Learnt how to present, market and sell my business and services, how to quote effectively, manage projects and manage client expectations. Worked with sub-contractors, learning how to recruite and manager their work on projects. Learnt about Enterprise Architecture and how this discipline could align with a technical communicator skillset. Learnt about complex migration and rebranding projects and their documentation requirements. Learnt about organisational structures and how to work with engineers, product managers and subject matter experts to deliver the technical documentation.
- Samples: Available on request
2013-2014. Skrill project
- About this period: Skrill is an online payment service provider with a unique digital wallet product and a customer base of 30 million users. The role required working with a dispersed team of testers, developers and project managers, located in London, Berlin and Sofia.
- Highlights: Created a new set of integration and administration guides, API guides, tutorials, product sheets and internal process guides to document their new flagship payment processing platform. Designed a new support website, with interactive content, including code examples, demos and tutorials.
- Skills and experience gained: Broadened my understanding of payment systems and creating support websites for customers.
- Samples: Available on request
2016-2020. Investec Wealth & Investment project
- About this period: Investec is an established investment bank, servicing wealthy customers across the globe. Reporting directly to the head of Enterprise Architecture, this role required producing technical documentation and training material for the firm’s core investment platform.
- Highlights: Using an Enterprise Architecture framework, produced three levels of documentation: Level 1 — describing core business processes, systems and teams, Level 2 — providing in-depth documentation for the twenty modules that comprised the full investment platform, and Level 3 — covering key technology and development content at a coding level.
- Skills and experience gained: Learned how to apply Enterprise Architecture methodology to the process of producing internal technical documentation. Gained further experience in creating and delivering training programmes and eLearning courses. Learnt about video production and how to use Storyline Articulate to create eLearning. Learnt how to read and understand the underlying developer code.
- Samples: Please contact me to discuss.
2020-2025. Joined Thredd
- About this period: Thredd is an issuer processor, certified by Mastercard, Visa and Discover to process and manage credit, debit and pre-paid card transactions globally. Worked with product managers, engineers and business analysts to produce comprehensive, clear and easy-to-read technical documentation.
- Highlights:
- Setting up the technical documentation business function, including tools, templates, standards and processes—transforming the way in which the company created and provided technical documentation to customers.
- Creating a comprehensive knowledge base of both business and technical content, including new technical integration guides, users guides, product sheets and API documentation.
- Implementing a new customer-facing support website, with interactive content.
- Incorporating an AI chatbot and generative AI technology into our technical documentation.
- Skills and experience gained: Deepened my understanding of use of Madcap Flare and learnt how to train, configure and deploy an AI chatbot. Improved my knowledge and skills as a manager, managing a team of five writers.
- Samples: See https://docs.thredd.com/