I am pleased to publish the first interview on ChandraSaaS.
Paulo Victor works as a Senior Lead Technical Writer at Argyle. A few months back, when I requested him to share his experiences, he was kind enough to share a few words with me.
Give us an intro about yourself.
Hey, Venkat! My name is Paulo Victor and I work as a Technical Writer at Argyle. Although I’m just 4 years experienced as a TW, I come from an engineering background – I was a developer for over ten years.
I have worked for the unicorns Wildlife Studios and Nubank and now for an upcoming one. Currently I’m based in Brazil but I plan to become a digital nomad in the near future.
How did you start your career and what were the early days like?
I started to develop during high school and got a job right after. It helped me to be aware of the whole development lifecycle and the structure of a software factory.
Being on the other side, helped me later to see a bit clearer the developers’ pains and support them in a proper way.
How did you switch to a technical writer’s career and how do you feel about it?
After some years as a developer I decided to take a break and moved to Canada to go deeper into the studies of English language. Later, back in Brazil, I worked some years as an English teacher.
As I was always involved with the English language learning and teaching, a former colleague invited me to join this brand new opportunity of mixing up language and technology (and much more, of course!).
I’m pretty excited about the future of the technical writing area! More and more the companies see the importance of the documentation for their development. I think that now we have the world’s attention.
What is your current role at Argyle? Let us know about Argyle too.
Argyle is a company that puts the control over employment data back into the hands of workers.
My duties in a nutshell, I control the developers’ portal (guides and APIs) and support internal development.
How was your experience as a technical writer at Nubank, Brazil?
It was great! As the first technical writer of such a big company (their engineering team had more than 600 people at that time), I must say it was very challenging. But at the same time, we could help them to understand the importance of documentation and now they have a decent chapter of technical writers.
What document management and other software do you recommend for technical writers?
The market is well served with great CMS tools like Confluence, DITA, and so on.
I think that more important than the tool itself, is the SSOT (Single Source of Truth) concept. No matter the tool, if the readers can easily find and trust the information they are reading, then we did right! Adaptability is the key here.
A few words about your family and the place you live.
I come from a small town called Caraguatatuba, at the Southeastern coast of Brazil. I live with my wife, daughter, and pets and we are planning to move to Spain next year.
How can people reach you?
Everyone who wants to chat can come to my Instagram or LinkedIn.
Good luck Paulo.
Venkat