Essential Technical Writer Interview Questions
Now that you have a basic idea of what to expect in your technical writing interview, it’s time to get a little specific and look at the actual list of questions and answers from actual technical writer experiences.
Let’s start with some basic, generic questions without any specific answers.
Here are a few that you can expect in your interview:
Why Do You Wish to Work for Our Company?
This is one of those questions often heard in interviews, irrespective of the position or career.
As with all the aforementioned technical writer interview questions, this one doesn’t have an ultimate answer.
But to win the recruiters and show them that you’ve done your homework, conduct some research and find out the accomplishments of their company if you already haven’t.
You may also express that you look forward to working in an environment that promotes professional growth. Working side-by-side with talented people has always been one of your priorities.
First round: Initial screening (60 minutes)
I applied on Amazons career page, and Programmer Writer falls under the Editorial, Writing, & Content Management job family. Within one day the Technical Sourcer reached out to me to make an appointment for the first screening round. When the day came, I met with a senior member of the AWS Programmer Writer team. The session was 60 minutes long in total, about 50 minutes were for interviewing while the last 10 minutes were for any questions I had. This interview was a mix of technical and behavioral questions.
At a high level, there were 3 things I needed to express in this interview:
This round was interesting to me because it was more of a conversation. The interviewer asked multiple follow-ups based on my answers so it was not just a copy-paste from a question bank. A few days later, I received an email from Technical Sourcer to notify my eligibility for the second round.
Are You Comfortable Collaborating with Other Team Members?
Technical writers have to collaborate with various team members, including, but not limited to designers, web developers, subject matter experts, and sometimes external leads.
Naturally, the ideal candidate should be a team player. The job won’t be easy if you’re not so big on collaborating with other members.
You also don’t want to answer with a simple “yes.” Elaborate a bit – share an example of the different jobs/projects you’ve worked on where you had to collaborate with one or more people.
Need more help with technical writing interview questions? If you’re interested in learning more about the technical writing role and landing your dream technical writing job, then check out our Technical Writing Certification Course.
What is the AWS Programmer Writer hiring process?
I met 3 recruiters in this process:
All interviews did not have coding questions and were conducted virtually via Amazon Chime. There were 3 major rounds for this L4 position, and the whole process was about 1.5 months in length:
- Prep call (consider this as round 2.5)