Senior Technical Writer

About the position

As a Senior Technical Writer at Xylem, you will be a part of the global Technical Documentation Group.

You will develop technical product information in the Component Content Management System (CCMS) and Adobe Suite, and work closely with the technical documentation Project Coordinators and Subject matter Expert (SME) Engineers in developing Quick guides, Installation and Operation Instructions, Spare Parts catalogues, User Interface copy, and more, for customers of Xylem products and systems. As well you will coordinate translation projects in the Translation management System (TMS), and work closely with external Localization vendors providing translation services in various languages.

The work includes both technical writing, developing technical illustrations and translation coordination.

As you develop in your role there will be career opportunities to take on additional challenges in either a specialist or management track.

About the global Technical Documentation Group

A R&D team of cross-border technical information experts, responsible for the development of customer product information and dedicated to providing customers with quality results through intelligent content reuse (using XML technologies).

The group mission is to be a single source of Xylem's information content, available globally in reusable form, customer centric, governed by common processes, tools, and controls for multiple publication outputs to multiple channels in multiple languages.

The information developed by this team is used in Installation and Operation Instructions, Service and Repair instructions, Technical Specifications, Spare Parts catalogues, Programming guides, Quick guides, Mounting instructions, product catalogs, and more.

The group consists of a Content Development (production) team and a Documentation Systems team.

About the Xylem R&D team in Vadodara & Bangalore

This team is a shared R&D team responsible for developing and maintaining the Xylem product portfolio including pumps, turbines, accessories, monitoring & control systems, water analysis equipment, and documentation for these products.

Summary

List the essential functions and major activities in order of their importance.

Content development and Quality assurance

• Develop text content for reuse and usability in accordance with product risk analysis’s, Subject matter expertise, and according to content development guidelines, Authoring Guidelines, Authoring Procedures, Graphics Guidelines, Information Model, Style Guide.
• Develop Technical Illustrations in line with requirements
• Perform analysis of existing content, responsible for task analysis (TA) and annotated topic lists (ATL)
• Maintain metadata, create illustrations/graphics, subject topics and maps
• Coordinate approval process for the English original information
• Request translations
• Publish English original instructions
• Contribute the development of the CCMS folder structure and the Information Model
• Coordinate localization requests
•  Scope costs for localization requests, and coordinate the cost approval process
•  Request translations of the English source language content in the Component Content Management System (CCMS), or from other sources
• Coordinate the translation workflow, and Quality Assurance (QA), process within the Translation Management System (TMS)
• Import translation packages back to the CCMS
• Create target language outputs (Product manuals in PDF and HTML format, or format for SW text strings)
• Administrate final check of target language outputs before publishing
• Publish the approved final output in digital archives, and/or on the customer facing web

Part 2 Describe the Person

Minimum professional and educational background desired (include years of experience)

Educational background:

BE with any steams Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Computer science, Civil or equivalent.

Professional experience:

• 2-4 years with technical writing, Technical Illustrations and localization coordinator
• Experience with standardizing terminology for use in technical documentation, user interface and its translation

Applications may be asked to take a writing test to convey their content structuring abilities and technical English language skills.

Describe the most important competencies required of the individual.  (the most important is first)

• Genuinely interested in Technical Writing and Illustrations, and sees as a present and future career in Technical Communications
• Communicative in verbal and written English language
• Experience with following a Style guide. E.g. in Simplified Technical English (STE) and Microsoft (or Chicago) Manual of Style
• Experience with coordinating development of a story board for assisting development of Technical illustrations
• Good understanding of SDLC, DDLC and Translations process
• Thorough and structured way of working
• Understands single sourcing in technical documentation and conditional profiling of content
• Ability to deliver on made commitments
• Analytic ability; Chunking, grouping, classifying and labelling according to guidelines
• Proficient in structuring text and understands the practice of metadata
• Experience in developing text content within XML vocabulary environments like DITA XML.
• Proficient in using these technologies (or their equivalents):
  • Terminology and content checkers such as Acrolinx
  • Component Content Management Systems (CCMS) such as Astoria On-Demand
  • XML Editor, such as PTC Arbortext Editor or Oxygen XML Editor
• Basic understanding of connected systems, computer networks
• Experienced in Illustration tools and vector- and raster/photo illustration formats
  • Adobe CC suite: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
  • Experience with rendering 2d from 3d with Keyshot, and developing 3d service instructions with PTC Creo Illustrate, or similar software, is advantageous
• Good understanding of the publishing pipeline, content exchange and web publishing
• Good  understanding of computer file formats such as XML, InDesign,  Microsoft DocX
• Experience with managing tasks on MS Sharepoint and/or Atlassian Jira