Salesforce Technical Writers - anyone here?
Hi! Does anyone work as a technical writer at Salesforce, embedded on a product team? Care to share your experience - what’s it like working there, how the work is, challenges, etc? Feel free to PM.
On the other side, salesforce is the only company I know which has half a day out of weeklong boot camp for new engineers, allocated to be taught by technical writers. So, engineers are as close to understanding the value of tech writers as they possibly can be.
Half a day? HARDLY! There was one, 30-45 minute tech writing intro during my boot camp. Whether or not it’s part of boot camp doesn’t reflect the actual work experience of tech writers trying to engage and get information from their product/engineering teams.
For us it was half a day. In our team, we make it a point to invite tech writers and performance engineers (both of them are shared across scrum teams), to our daily stand-up. They join when they want or when there is a specific need. They don't really have to try hard to engage dev time. This may vary by team probably.
On another note, if you were to pursue a tech writing team at Salesforce, internal doc under Sue Warnke is the place to go. She is one of the best leaders in the company imo.
Thanks for this context. Are there any teams you would specifically not recommend for the above reasons? What makes Sue a good leader?
I was and I can’t tell you how negative my experience was. Onboarding was pathetic. Support was extremely limited, and (most) of the management is completely unhelpful. The culture on that team is bland and cold as all get out. In addition, I think that there’s a lack of respect and understanding of tech writers at Salesforce, as is in many places I’m sure. Engineers don’t understand and the PM/PO crew won’t give any helpful feedback on your writing until it’s too late.