In this week’s episode of the Knowledgebase Ninja’s Podcast, Gowri Ramkumar is joined by Kate Dolan, the Senior Technical Writer at Spotify. They discuss the importance of internal communication for document success, building relationships and engaging with the customers, and tips on managing documentation workflow. 

Key Facts

• • Kate’s LinkedIn
  • Spotify’s website
  • Kate holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Sociology from the University of Albany
  • Kate is a former Technical and Copy Writer for Flashtalking, Inc, Tapad, Fathom Communications, Vitech Systems Group, Fathom Communications, and Quirky

Key Takeaways

• • After completing her Bachelor’s Degree, Kate started her content creation career as a Freelance Technical Writer at Chequed.com. Alongside, she piloted her professional journey as a Content Writer / Technical Writer at BidNet
  • Kate always found herself drawn to technical documentation. Therefore, In 2014, after working for three as a commercial and freelance Copywriter and Editor, she decided to create her focused path towards a technical writing career
  • Kate believes that her research project and the variety of subjects she studied during her bachelors in Sociology has helped her a lot in building her career as a content curator. Her knowledge in sociology helped her in writing mental health blogs
  • Throughout her professional career, Kate worked with several renowned companies such as;  Flashtalking, Tapad, Fathom Communications, Vitech Systems Group, Quirky, and now Spotify 
  • Currently, Kate is working as the Senior Technical Writer at Spotify, and she manages the technical documentation workflow, internal communication between engineers and content creators. She believes that refined internal communication helps in delivering high-quality documentation
  • For Kate, technical writing is a way of answering technical queries in the easiest way possible. She believes that understanding your targeted audience and their needs is crucial to produce reliable and solution-oriented documents
  • At Spotify, Kate works closely with the operations team, engineers and technical writers; She loves to communicate with relevant internal stakeholders daily. She believes that regular communication helps you diagnose problems and work on the solutions timely  
  • Kate believes in building relationships and engaging with the customers
  • Kate believes that technical writing has become an indispensable component of business these days; it works great for the management to deliver its message to their audiences, customers, employees, and all other stakeholders effectively
  • Kate shares that “believe in your instinct can fuel your growth drastically“. She says that “there is a lot of work you have done, and you are going to do, but if it follows your instinct, the results will be more powerful and fruitful.”

Kate’s biggest influence

• • Joe Wojak – Senior Technical Writer at Spotify, her coworker, and mentor. 

Kate shares that Joe taught her a lot about how to manage and execute documentation processes. She particularly mentions his ability to raise out-of-the-box, thought-provoking and insightful questions during meetings.

What documentation-related advice would Kate give to his 20-year-old self?

“Believe in your Instinct, and believe in yourself”. Kate shares that your intuition plays a vital role in your success. If you tune up your hard work and skills with your instincts, every situation is going to be a win-win for you

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