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The Not-Boring Tech Writer

The Not-Boring Tech Writer

De : Kate Mueller
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Some people hear the phrase "technical writing" and think it must be boring. We're here to show the full complexity and awesomeness of being a tech writer. This podcast is for anyone who writes technical documentation of any kind, including those who may not feel comfortable calling themselves tech writers. Whether you create product documentation, support documentation, READMEs, or any other technical content—and whether you deal with imposter syndrome, lack formal training, or find yourself somewhere in the gray area between technical communications and general writing—there's a place for you here. Each month, we publish two episodes: an interview with an amazing guest focusing on useful skills or tools that can help you improve your tech writing skills, and a behind-the-scenes solo episode with host Kate Mueller about what she’s working on, struggling with, or thinking about in her daily tech writing life. The Not-Boring Tech Writer is generously sponsored by KnowledgeOwl, knowledge base software built for people who care, by people who care.© 2016-2026 KnowledgeOwl Economie Réussite personnelle
Épisodes
  • Kate sounds off on building confidence

    Kate sounds off on building confidence
    Jun 25 2026

    In this solo episode, I share my latest content updates progress and reflect on my takeaways from Heather Zoppetti’s interview (S3:E38). I also share some thoughts on shifting from focusing on reducing stress to building confidence and share an anecdote about how my podcast t-shirt helped me discover a local tech writer in the wild.


    —


    I wrote and hosted a series of five webinars on our Change Management Toolkit this month, which seemed to go well and which gave me a sense for where the gaps in the toolkit still are. I’m still hoping to create a publicly accessible version of the toolkit I can share with you. I’ve also been continuing to update docs as part of the article editor redesign, this month focusing on our synced articles, categories, and knowledge base documentation. This prompted a partial reorganization and the creation of 14 new articles as that reorganization identified content gaps.

    I reflect on my interview with Heather Zoppetti, a former software developer and knitwear business owner. I love how Heather combined her software developer tech chops with a decade of crafting knitwear patterns and content to get her first tech writing job. I reflect on the similarities in our approaches and outlooks around getting feedback from other writers and viewing varied or unusual experiences as beneficial for a technical communicator. I’m trying to embrace her idea of technical communication’s goal of building confidence in your end-user, reader, or watcher, which I think is a much more positive way of framing my whole “reduce stress” goal.

    I close by talking about all the different forms that technical communication can take, and therefore all the different paths and roles that technical communicators have. I share a story of a woman at a local natural foods store asking me questions about my podcast t-shirt, which culminated in me pointing out that if she writes SOPs, she’s a technical writer, too.

    In this episode:

    • [00:00:29]: Progress updates on my change management toolkit webinar series and Support knowledge base content updates
    • [00:04:48]: Reflecting on Heather Zoppetti’s career path, skills, and collaboration techniques
    • [00:11:50]: Reframing the idea of docs as stress reduction to docs as confidence builders, thanks to Heather
    • [00:14:28]: The variety of technical communication types and paths
    • [00:19:10]: My podcast t-shirt in the wild: a story of discovering a tech writer in the wild


    Resources discussed in this episode:

    • Support knowledge base: Shared & synced content
    • Knitting together a technical writing career with Heather Zoppetti (S3:E38)
    • The craft of technical writing with Marcia Riefer Johnston (S3:E8)


    Join the discussion by replying on Bluesky


    —


    Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:


    We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:

    • Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.com
    • thenotboringtechwriter.com
    • LinkedIn
    • Bluesky
    • Guest suggestions form


    Contact Kate Mueller:

    • knowledgewithsass.com
    • LinkedIn
    • Bluesky


    Contact KnowledgeOwl:

    • knowledgeowl.com
    • LinkedIn
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    25 min
  • Knitting together a technical writing career with Heather Zoppetti

    Knitting together a technical writing career with Heather Zoppetti
    Jun 11 2026
    In this episode, I talk with Heather Zoppetti, a senior technical writer who came to the field through software development and a decade spent running a hand-knitting pattern business. We talk about how technical communication shows up far beyond software documentation, how to recognize and reframe the transferable skills hiding in a nonlinear career, and why being willing to try something matters more than doing it perfectly.—Heather and I discuss her winding path into technical writing, which started with a career in software development, took a decade-long detour into running a hand-knitting pattern and yarn business, and eventually circled back to tech. When she returned to job hunting and realized she no longer recognized the skills developers were expected to have, she stumbled on a technical writing posting and recognized the work immediately: writing knitting patterns is technical communication. She applied using her knitting patterns as her writing portfolio, and we talk about why her tech writing instincts came more from designing knitwear than from her years as a developer.A central thread of our conversation is the idea that technical communication is far broader than software documentation. Heather pushed me to think beyond written text to formats like videos, live workshops, interactive lessons, and animated GIFs, and to recognize that different audiences and learning styles call for different approaches. We dig into her experiments with internal documentation at Vanguard, including running user research cohorts to learn the why behind how people use content, and why metrics alone can't tell you whether someone was genuinely absorbed or just stepped away from their desk. We also explore what happens when a docs team builds its own site using the design system it documents, and how "drinking your own champagne" surfaces bugs and builds trust with users.We spend much of the second half on transferable skills and how to reframe a nonlinear career for a tech writing role. Heather and I both believe more people have technical communication experience than they realize, whether it's a pet medication schedule, a tax prep sheet, a restaurant menu, or a cheat sheet you wrote so your family stops calling you for help. We talk about treating your resume and cover letter as their own forms of technical communication, mapping your experience to the language in a job description, and why good documentation ultimately leaves your reader feeling confident they can do the thing. Heather closes with a reminder that stuck with me: you don't have to go all in to try something, and the only real way to find out if something is for you is to give it a go.About Heather Zoppetti:Heather Zoppetti, from Philadelphia, has a rich background in computer science and technical writing. Her current professional journey has her spending her days programming, creating tooling for engineers, and writing documentation. When she’s not typing away at code or text, Heather’s knitting, painting, or performing some other needle witchcraft like cross-stitch. She loves coffee, cats, and the Oxford comma.In this episode:[00:01:20]: Heather's origin story: from software developer to hand-knitting business owner to technical writer[00:03:15]: Recognizing knitting patterns as technical writing and using them as a portfolio[00:05:59]: Heather's current UX writing role and the value of not being a lone writer[00:08:51]: How companies value documentation and where it sits in the org[00:12:42]: Why "technical communication" is broader than "technical writing"[00:13:51]: Meeting different learning styles with video, GIFs, workshops, and more[00:18:04]: Experimenting with internal docs, user research cohorts, and the limits of metrics[00:23:06]: How different roles (designers vs. developers) prefer to learn[00:28:13]: Job titles: technical writer, content writer, or documentation engineer?[00:29:52]: Tooling constraints and building a docs site with your own design system[00:31:03]: "Drinking your own champagne": how dogfooding surfaces bugs and builds trust[00:34:40]: The case for transferable skills and the tech comm you already do[00:39:37]: Technical communication everywhere: medicine labels, pet care, tax prep, and menus[00:47:48]: Reframing a nonlinear career in cover letters, resumes, and interviews[00:52:36]: Interviewing, imposter syndrome, and transferable skills[00:58:52]: How good documentation leaves your reader feeling confident[01:01:08]: Resource recommendation: the Write the Docs Slack and community[01:03:15]: Best advice: just try it, and treat new things as experimentsResources discussed in this episode:"Knitting Together a Technical Writing Career": Heather's Write the Docs Portland 2025 talkWrite the Docs SlackJoin the discussion by replying on Bluesky —Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@...
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    1 h et 11 min
  • Kate sounds off on stress reduction

    Kate sounds off on stress reduction
    May 28 2026
    In this solo episode, I share my latest content updates progress and reflect on my takeaways from Florian Lefebvre’s interview (S3:E36). I also share some thoughts on how documentation leads can reduce stress for contributors or reviewers.—I’ve been continuing to update docs as part of the article editor redesign, though somehow despite updating a lot, the total number hasn’t changed much. I've also helped with docs on a few new features, including small updates to our API endpoint documentation, writing some best practices for using URL redirect articles and categories, major changes to our URL checker, and writing some guidance on robots.txt customizations to prevent certain types of user agent traffic. I also reviewed docs someone else updated when we finally transitioned Advanced search to being a full find-and-replace feature. And, of course, I kept quite busy with Write the Docs Portland, serving as the Writing Day Coordinator!I reflect on my interview with Florian Lefebvre, co-maintainer of Astro. I love Florian’s story arc of going from someone who self-described as “lazy” and “not enthusiastic” about docs to becoming someone for whom docs are an essential part of building a feature. And I love how Astro Docs uses "talking and doc-ing" meetings to work through core concepts rather than turn them into grammar nitpick fests, lowering the barrier for non-native English speakers and folks who aren’t professional writers to produce clear, accurate documentation.I close by reflecting on the ways that the processes Sarah Rainsberger, docs lead at Astro Docs, has built processes that have reduced stress for her contributors, including the talking and doc-ing meetings but also the single page for experimental features, taking on the responsibility of content hierarchy, multiple pages, and cross-references for herself. I use a vaguely similar approach here at KnowledgeOwl but I haven’t tried the single page approach, and I may have to try this out with my team. In my own experience, decisions about naming pages and deciding where they live in the content hierarchy are some of the most stressful tasks for my team, and removing those as tasks has made them a lot more excited to contribute to documentation.In this episode:[00:00:44]: Progress updates[00:03:25]: Reflections on Florian’s story arc[00:05:06]: Reflections on Astro Docs’ talking and doc-ing meetings[00:07:59]: Reflections on how we can reduce stress for SMEs, contributors, or reviewersResources discussed in this episode:Writing docs as an open source developer with Florian Lefebvre (S3:E36)Empathy advocacy: Designing docs for all emotional states with Ryan Macklin (S3:E16)Kate sounds off on cognitive capital and learning (S3:E17)Astro Docs Docs (AD2)Join the discussion by replying on Bluesky —Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comthenotboringtechwriter.comLinkedInBlueskyGuest suggestions formContact Kate Mueller:knowledgewithsass.comLinkedInBlueskyContact KnowledgeOwl:knowledgeowl.comLinkedIn
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    20 min
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