I am a technical writer with over 30 years experience as a software and hardware engineer in the semiconductor industry. This has included providing documentation, examples, training and support for highly technical users of parallel processors, embedded systems, software development tools and APIs. I have also worked closely with customers, both to develop specifications for new products and to support their use of hardware and software products.
My background in software and hardware product development has given me a good understanding of what engineers and end users need from their documentation. I have been responsible for the creation of documents in a variety of print and online formats using Framemaker, Microsoft Office, Illustrator, Photoshop, Visio, Affinity Suite, reStructuredText, Sphinx, LaTeX, Docbook, and many other tools.
I have programming experience in C, C++, Python, Java, Perl, PHP, JavaScript, Visual Basic and other languages. I have also worked in silicon design and verification, product marketing, requirements gathering, patent writing and web design.
I spent several years working in Japan, Asia-Pacific, Italy and Silicon Valley. I speak some Italian and Japanese. Although I will admit that my Japanese must be pretty rusty by now.
I am based in Bristol in the UK and Umbria in Italy. I took a year off while we were restoring a house in Italy. You can read about this on Paola’s blog: Sunflowers & Saffron.