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A familiar argument, now heard in the right room 
 I recently read an interesting article called Documentation-first programming on the Negroni Venture Studios website.
The central argument of the post, which has been doing the rounds in tech writing circles, is simple and, for anyone who has worked in technical writing, it probably rings a bell: the specification is the program. The code…
I recently attended the Information Energy 2026 virtual conference, which focuses on content strategy and technical communication.
Like most tech writing events right now, AI was a dominant theme - how to write for it, how to use it, how to prepare your content for it.
All useful and valuable stuff. 
 But one talk stood out to me for a different reason, and it wasn’t really about…
My name’s Ian and I’m a technical writer based in Spain working mainly on software documentation. 
 I started out my career in the tech support world, moved into journalism, followed that with a stint in digital project management and I eventually ended up doing what I feel is my true vocation - technical writing! 
 I’ve been writing for many years now about all sorts of…
Introduction 
 Douglas Adams’s seminal work The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is, among many other things, a meditation on how to navigate complexity with limited information and imperfect tools.
This is probably a familiar-sounding situation for technical writers - explaining complex systems to audiences with varying levels of expertise and using tooling that is not always…
Overview 
 Technical writers and support teams have always worked closely together, but I think that the rise of AI is fundamentally changing how we collaborate, close documentation gaps and ensure that we provide users with the information they need, when they need it.
With the increasing adoption of automation and large language models (LLMs) in technical writing, we’re seeing new…
Overview 
 The recent Write the Docs Berlin conference led me to reflect on the evolving role of technical writers.
Here are some thoughts on how I think the technical writer role is evolving into one of “strategic product enabler” and why this transformation matters for organizations. 
 We’re everywhere 
 We’re everywhere: in your code, in your…
Overview 
 I gave a talk at the recent Write the Docs Berlin 2025 conference .
For those of you not familiar with Write the Docs , it’s a global community of people who care about documentation.
They have regular conferences in different locations around the world.
It was a fantastic event with a very diverse lineup of speakers and attendees.
I really enjoyed the…
LinkedIn 
 Check out my LinkedIn page to see where I’ve worked. 
 Writing samples 
 Here are just a few things I’ve worked on and written over the years: 
 Technical documentation 
 
 Salto Systems Support Portal : https://support.saltosystems.com/ 
 Salto Systems Developer Portal : https://developer.saltosystems.com/ 
 Kolibri User Guide :…
Event overview 
 I recently attended the AI the Docs event which focused on the intersection of artificial intelligence and technical documentation, exploring how AI is transforming documentation creation, consumption, and management. The event took place over two days with multiple speakers and presentations. 
 This blog post summarizes the key themes, notable presentations, and practical…
I recently attended Open Source Summit Europe 2024 . It’s an event organized by the Linux Foundation, and although the main focus is on the development of open-source software, there was a good deal of documentation-related presentations and discussion. 
 It was also the first TechDocsCon track at Open Source Summit Europe, and I was really happy to see a micro-conference dedicated to…
A review of the book Docs-as-Ecosystem by Alejandra Quetzalli.
I gave a talk at the recent Write the Docs Atlantic conference . 
 For those of you not familiar with Write the Docs , it’s a global community of people who care about documentation. 
 My talk was about glossaries and managing terminology at scale.
You can see an abstract of the talk on the conference speakers page . 
 The experience was great and I really enjoyed the Q&A…
I participated in the 2021 edition of Google Season of Docs (GSoD) working with the organisation Learning Equality . 
 
 
 Source: developers.google.com/season-of-docs 
 GSoD is an initiative that provides support for open source projects to improve their documentation and gives professional technical writers an opportunity to gain experience in open source. 
 The project…

 There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. 
 – Phil Karlton
My limited experience of contributing to open source projects as a technical writer has been a lot of fun so far.
When I first started out on my technical writing journey, one of the main concepts I kept reading about was “docs as code”, or “docs like code”. 
 Code itself had always seemed like a bit of a mystery to me , so what was treating documentation as code all about? How did it differ from “normal” documentation and why would anyone want to treat documentation as…
As a lone writer who had to get to grips with Git when I started a new role in early 2019, I have to say there’s definitely a steep learning curve to it.