An Overview of MadCap Flare
Interviews for Top Jobs at Madcap Software
Manager Interview
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Madcap Software
Interview
through but brief process- interviewed over the phone with HR to start and then with the VP of marketing and sales and the marketing director for final stages. It was a pretty strait forward interview and process.
- why did I want to work there, and other situational questions in terms of challenges and my response in those scenarios.
Software Engineer Interview
I applied online. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Madcap Software (La Jolla, CA) in Apr 2015
Interview
Phone interview with management followed by a round-table onsite interview. Both interviews were strictly technical. The process was pretty standard based on my other places I have interviewed at. I expected that they were hiring with someone with a C#/.NET background based on the job description and that is exactly what I got from the interviews.
- Almost every single keyword in C#, except ones used primarily in LINQ, with a use case for each one.
My first technical writing job
In the Spring of 2001, I walked off the university campus straight into my first technical writing job at a multinational technical organization. I was immediately immersed in creating user guides for UNIX system administrators. The learning curve was steep, but I loved being in the thick of the development cycle — meeting the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to review features, getting into the details of the technology, and creating documentation that, in many cases, was the primary user interface for our users. I remember one night staying late in the lab testing a procedure I had written for a new networking protocol. As I walked back to my apartment that night, I was enthralled by how much I enjoyed what I was doing, even if the complexity of the subject matter required that I put in extra working hours at times.
As I became more established in my role, I started taking on more responsibilities. For one assignment, I was paired with a member of our usability team to help conduct primary research on the usability of our documentation. We invited several of our customers into our usability lab to have them test our documentation. I was certain that we were going to pass with flying colors!
Halfway through the first test, I realized I was badly mistaken. Given the task to locate instructions for a given procedure, only about 30% of them could even find the right place in the guide. Then, the participants were given a scenario that required them to use those instructions. Sitting at their terminals, here is some of what I observed:
A sense of shock came over me as I watched this all unfold. It became apparent to me that I had never really considered how our guides would be used once we finished authoring. As we continued through the testing, the participants were given the chance to offer verbal feedback. All I could do was listen and take notes. Their feedback was painful but golden. Emboldened and humbled by what I had learned, I marched back to my office ready to start tackling the most pressing issues our users were facing with our documentation. We had serious issues to address. I wrote a report that summarised my top recommendations. I presented my report to my bosses and got approval to pursue a good number of them.
What happened over the next few weeks was the beginning of the end of my career as a technical writer. Every single initiative that we identified either wasn’t possible in our authoring system or required enormous investment. Though I felt frustrated by this response, I still pressed on, not wanting to let challenges stop us from improving. After working on these issues for a few weeks and not making any progress, I eventually shelved the project. I went back to focusing only on content development. But this experience had left me scarred. Knowing that my content was being delivered in nearly unusable formats zapped much of the enjoyment that I had found in my job. Ignoring all our valuable user feedback gnawed at me. Slowly, after six years of technical writing, its allure waned, and I wanted out. I started looking for something new.
After a short search, I was able to find a job as a project manager in the same organization. I moved out of the world of technical documentation entirely, assuming that I would never go back. I took on my new project manager role with vigor and assumed that I was at the beginning of a new and exciting career path. It did not take long for me to realize, however, that I didn’t enjoy back-to-back meetings every single day, and that I did not thrive in the environment of navigating and closing complex negotiations and dealing with constant conflict.
After sticking with the project management job for five years, I found myself completely depleted of energy, lacking any motivation, and feeling a void in any creative impulse I once had. The truth is that I really missed technical writing. I missed diving deep into the technical details of projects. I missed translating technical jargon into usable content. I missed having blocks of time where I could put on my headphones and just completely sink into my work. At the same time, I knew a move back to my old technical writing team wasn’t going to satisfy me.
After 11 years at the organization that first hired me, I walked away willingly, hoping to find a job that made me feel alive again.
In just a few weeks, I found exactly the job that I wanted and applied. I got the interview. After sufficiently satisfying their questions about my sincerity of wanting to be back in technical writing, they took a chance on me and offered me the job. I packed up my life, moved to a new city, and started my new job as a technical writer once again.
My new team used a variety of different authoring tools, one of which was MadCap Flare. Until starting this job, I had never heard of Flare. The other writers on the team enjoyed authoring in Flare, so when my opportunity came to own a Flare project, I was excited about the possibilities.
What I experienced next completely transformed my career as a technical writer. The more I used Flare’s technical writing software, the more I enjoyed it. For the first time in years, I looked forward to getting up and going to work again. For the first time in my career, I was delivering results that my stakeholders were thrilled with, something that I never experienced in previous organizations.
Topics Discussed in this Podcast
If you enjoyed this podcast, youll also like Charles Jeters recent interview with Mike Hamilton.
Im a technical writer / API doc specialist based in the Seattle area. In this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, visual communication, information architecture, writing techniques, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out simplifying complexity and API documentation for some deep dives into these topics. If youre a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the field, be sure to subscribe to email updates. You can also learn more about me or contact me.
A sense of shock came over me as I watched this all unfold. It became apparent to me that I had never really considered how our guides would be used once we finished authoring. As we continued through the testing, the participants were given the chance to offer verbal feedback. All I could do was listen and take notes. Their feedback was painful, but golden.
What happened over the next few weeks was the beginning of the end of my career as a technical writer. Every single initiative that we identified either wasn’t possible in our authoring system, or required enormous investment. Though I felt frustrated by this response, I still pressed on, not wanting to let challenges stop us from improving.
After sticking with the project management job for five years, I found myself completely depleted of energy, lacking any motivation, and feeling a void in any creative impulse I once had. The truth is that I really missed technical writing. I missed diving deep into the technical details of projects. I missed translating technical jargon into usable content. I missed having blocks of time where I could put on my headphones and just completely sink into my work. At the same time, I knew a move back to my old technical writing team wasn’t going to satisfy me.
As I became more established in my role, I started taking on more responsibilities. For one assignment, I was paired with a member of our usability team to help conduct primary research on the usability of our documentation. We invited several of our customers into our usability lab to have them test our documentation. I was certain that we were going to pass with flying colours!
After working on these issues for a few weeks and not making any progress, I eventually shelved the project. I went back to focusing only on content development. But this experience had left me scarred. Knowing that my content was being delivered in nearly unusable formats zapped much of the enjoyment that I had found in my job. Ignoring all our valuable user feedback gnawed at me. Slowly, after six years of technical writing, its allure waned, and I wanted out. I started looking for something new.
