The future is open: Answering the most common tech writing worries

I sometimes lurk on /r/technicalwriting to gauge the interests and sentiments of the community. What I’ve noticed over the years is that pessimism and anxiety have always been quite high; Reddit, it seems, can be a powerful outlet for all sorts of feelings. Here I’d like to analyze and address some of the challenging ones. If you had similar thoughts, I hope my words will prove useful.

Sampling tech writing fears and concerns using Reddit’s data

Using this script, I downloaded the last 200 posts from /r/technicalwriting and asked Claude to analyze the main worries and sentiments. It identified the following main themes: Career validation, Impostor syndrome, Fear of AI, Transition uncertainty, and Performance self-doubt. This is what Claude said about the patterns it found in the sample of posts I downloaded using its script:

The language people use reveals their anxiety through hedging (“I think,” “maybe,” “not sure”), seeking permission (“Should I…?”), and expressing vulnerability (“I’m lost,” “I need help,” “I’m worried”). The posts often contain requests for validation and expressions of being overwhelmed or uncertain about next steps.

These patterns show that the community struggles most with confidence, career direction, and feeling secure in their professional identity—especially given current market pressures and AI concerns.

Some posts often go unanswered, or get replies that are not constructive or that add up to the existing despair. I don’t get Reddit, and will never claim to, but I do recognize hopelessness and frustration when I see them. As I think most of us have gone, are going, or will go through some of these doubts at some point in our careers, I’ll try to provide my own answers.

Career validation: Am I making the right choice?

Many posts express doubts about technical writing as a solid career choice. “I’m starting to second guess my profession” a user states. Towards the end, there appears an answer: “We are always useful”. Many replies nod along. It’s a powerful question. I, too, often ask myself whether I should continue this line of work or pivot to something else.

My answer is that that question isn’t useful. You can’t get a good answer if not in hindsight, and even then it’ll be tainted by your own expectations of what success should have looked like. A more useful and actionable question is “Where can I go from here?” In our industry, careers are landing pads: Ask yourself what and where you can contribute to, and how you want to grow. Careers should never happen to you, unless you’re forced to do a job; rather, they should be a deliberate act of choice. Take a step forward, collect feedback, rinse and repeat. Don’t stop.

Impostor syndrome: Am I ready or good enough for the job?

This is another classic. Users sometimes complain about the lack of validation, training programs, or direction in their careers. Should I study API documentation? Are 6 years of experience enough? Should I take on coding? This quickly degenerates into analysis-paralysis. Some answers dismiss the issue, others are quick to recommend pivoting to other jobs.

My answer, borrowed from Kristina Halvorson of Content Strategy for the Web’s fame, is Fake it till you make it. We’re humanists in tech; we’re not building dams nor saving patients in the operating room. The measure of our success in what we call work – but really is an exercise in consensual epistemology – is how confident and persuasive we are in promoting the importance of words in tech. If scaffolding your resume in courses will make you feel surer, then by all means take them, but know this: To be a great technical writer you just need to care. Dive in and swim.

Future anxiety: Is Technical writing going to disappear due to AI?

Since the appearance of LLMs, writers have been concerned with AI disrupting our craft or making it disappear. In a recent post, a user asks “How do I pivot to a career path that won’t revolve around AI”. One of the answers, in typical Reddit style, recommends becoming a welder. Another compares the original poster with an encyclopedia’s salesmen, anchored in anachronistic ideals.

My answer is that no, we’re not going to disappear, because LLMs will always suck at what makes us indispensable. Instead, we’re going to shift to roles that are more editorial and grounded in strategy and coding than in writing, which isn’t the most important part of our job anyway. Start experimenting with AI right now, because the future of most intellectual work is augmentation. If you let businesses own the narrative around docs and AI, you’ll be left out of the picture. If the thought of using AI disgusts you, you might be humanizing it: Think of it as just a tool and use it.

Lack of support: Why aren’t employers appreciating our work?

The last type of worry I’m analyzing is fully embodied in this post titled “Are companies deprioritizing user docs lately?” The first comment already throws the heaviest rock: “Docs were ever a prio?” This is followed by a chorus of wails like “docs are the last priority [at my work]” and “rare is the organization that values docs”. It’s a great, uplifting read for a Sunday morning.

My answer is that nobody will value your work if you don’t make some positive noise about it, as in advocating for it and promoting a docs culture at work. This is because our discipline will always lie at the intersection of others, by design. As Josh Swords recently wrote in Being good isn’t enough, “a common mistake is assuming work speaks for itself. It rarely does.” Companies will set up writers for success only when they realize that they need great docs. Another solution is to actively focus on what matters and what can have an impact.

Remember though: sometimes the best course of action is to move to another company or team. You don’t have to play tech comm’s Sisyphus. Turning your horse and letting a Parthian shot off your bow is not a sign of failure. I’ve done it quite a bit of times in my career and thus avoided years of bitterness and despair at the price of some months of stressful yet stimulating onboarding. You don’t have to stay if you’re not appreciated, but let folks know why they should first.

Closing thoughts on optimism and what the future holds

The world is in ever increasing turmoil. We doom scroll and wonder if we’ll still have a planet to live in. AI moguls offer visions of post-scarcity utopias we know to be impossible. The job market staggers like a drunkard. Nobody is able to provide solutions, much less predictions about the fate that awaits us. What good amid these, O me, O life? Why choose optimism in this context?

Because we must. Because optimism is not something you feel after the end of a good day: that’s happiness, satisfaction perhaps, but not what Nick Cave once described as “the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism”. You’re not born with optimism, it doesn’t just originate in your heart. You don’t find optimism in a book, under a rock, or in a cup of tea. Optimism doesn’t lurk around the corner.

You build optimism day after day because the only way is through. This is true for your technical writing career as for anything else in life. This isn’t to dismiss genuine workplace trauma: As I mentioned earlier about knowing when to move on, optimism doesn’t mean enduring the unendurable. Sometimes the most optimistic act is recognizing that your energy is better invested elsewhere.

For those who find themselves in workplaces and circumstances where progress is possible, where the struggles are inherent to professional growth rather than systematic dysfunction, optimism becomes both a practical tool and a necessary stance. A duty, as Karl Popper, and Kant before him, notoriously suggested:

Optimism is a duty. The future is open. It is not predetermined. No one can predict it, except by chance. We all contribute to determining it by what we do. We are all equally responsible for its success.

– Karl Popper, expanding on Kant’s quote “Optimism is a moral duty”