Spotlight: Olivia McCormack

Olivia McCormack is a senior technical writer at Amazon Web Services. Her technical writing career has spanned 12 years and led her to work with major companies including PayByPhone, EventBrite, and Schneider Electric.

In this spotlight article, Olivia talks about why she’s still in love with technical writing, how learning in the classroom prepared her for her career, and what she looks for when she’s job-hunting.

Why did you decide to become a technical writer?

There are three things I’ve been passionate about for as long as I can remember: Writing, technology, and helping others. Technical writing is a beautiful marriage of all three of those things, and I think that’s why I’ve been in love with it for the last 12 years of my career.

Your website says you have a technical writing certificate from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). How did formal training in technical writing help you in your career?

I can’t recommend BCIT’s technical writing program highly enough to any aspiring technical writer.

All of my instructors were seasoned technical writers with a wealth of knowledge, and the assignments were incredibly hands-on and true to the real-life experience of a tech writer.

Whether I was walking into a classroom to find a piece of hardware on my desk that I would be tasked with documenting, or learning tools like MadCap Flare and Adobe FrameMaker, BCIT prepared me to hit the ground running into the world of technical writing.

You’ve worked in a variety of industries as a technical writer—including container packaging, energy, and software. What do you look for when job-hunting and why?

I really enjoyed my time documenting hardware at the beginning of my career, but I quickly realized that I was much more drawn to documenting software, and recently, the world of API documentation.

When I’m job-hunting, I tend to look for this dream combination: An opportunity in an industry I’m passionate about, where I’ll be able to continually learn new things and work with people who inspire me.

What is the most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

When I was working for a company called Unbounce (which is still one of my favourite jobs I’ve ever had), my boss asked me if I could temporarily take over the creation of the video tutorials for our documentation, as the person who normally handled them had just left the company and her replacement hadn’t been hired yet.

I had zero experience with video tutorials, as this isn’t a traditional part of technical writing and wasn’t covered in my schooling at BCIT, but I was excited to learn and immediately said yes.

That “temporary” duty turned into something I kept doing the whole time I worked there. Fast forward to six years later, and creating video tutorials has become one of my favourite ways to enhance documentation for users who are visual and auditory learners.

What’s a critical skill for technical writers to have?

I think one of the most important skills for a technical writer is the ability to put yourself in any reader’s shoes. Once you know who you’re writing for, you almost need to get into character, like an actor preparing to film a scene, so that you can tailor the content for that reader as you write it.

What aspect of technical writing has kept you working in the field for as long as you have?

I love that technical writing is a mix of two things: Independent work during which you can get lost in the art of writing and editing content, and the human interaction and constant learning that comes along with subject matter expert interviews and research. I’m both an extrovert and a curious person, so I love that I’m constantly meeting new people and learning new things in this career.

What other types of writing do you enjoy?

I love working on any type of creative writing, but mostly poetry, short stories, and song lyrics.