Joanna Suau

Newcastle Upon Tyne · joanna.suau@gmail.com

I am a technical author that specialises in software documentation. I have been involved in technical communication for more than five years. My diverse background and experience enables me to write for multiple audiences about a wide range of subject matters. I am personally interested in documenting APIs and generating developer-oriented content.

Experience

Technical Author

Moltin (now Elastic Path)
  • Worked as part of the Developer Success team to generate developer-oriented content.
  • Tested endpoints to create and maintain API documentation.
  • Used APIs to create and document specific use cases (worked examples).
  • Responsible for creating and maintaining company-wide style guide.
  • Collaborated with the Marketing department to generate technical whitepapers, e-books, and blog posts.
Jun 2018-Jul 2019, Newcastle, UK

Senior Editor

Pierbridge
  • Supervised and trained a small team of junior technical authors.
  • Planned and implemented documentation cycle around the development cycle.
  • Provided documentation designed to cater for various target audiences (developers, end users, system admins, sales team, etc.).
  • Responsible for maintaining and developing a single-source documentation project.
  • Responsible for the automated process of documenting XML and database schema definition.
Oct 2017–May 2018, York, UK

Technical Author

Pierbridge
  • Responsible for the following types of documentation: installation, configuration, feature overview and maintenance manuals, troubleshooting guides, and technical reference documentation (i.e. API on-boarding, black box, scripting reference, etc.).
  • Involved in editing and branding documents, creating documentation procedures and standards.
  • Was part of the social media team responsible for creating and maintaining the company profile on LinkedIn.
  • Involved in documentation localization projects, preparing US-English documents for further translation.
  • Responsible for content management and revision control, information architecture, and design.
  • Implemented Kanban workflow for documentation support cycle.
Jun 2013–Oct 2017, York, UK

Business English Coach/Translator

self-employed
  • An owner of the business providing written translation services and Business English training courses (Taxation, Law, Finance, Marketing).
  • Involved in creating notional-functional syllabi with course overview, preparing student-generated course content.
  • Engaged in student/peer performance evaluation.
  • Provided employees of various companies with Business English classes, preparing course content with a chosen methodology overview.
  • Cooperated with a number of language schools as a freelance language coach.
  • Involved in peer performance evaluation.
  • Responsible for bookkeeping (i.e. profit, loss, purchases, sales, inventory).
Feb 2011–Jan 2013, Katowice, PL

Education

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY OF KRAKOW

Technical writing · Post graduate

RELEVANT COURSES: Technical Communication, Business Communication Sociology, Visual Communication, IT course for Technical Writers, Technical Content Management, Presentation and Communication Skill

Oct 2010–Jun 2011, Krakow, PL

UNIVERSITY OF SILESIA

Anglophonic Literature and Culture · Master of Arts

RELEVANT COURSES: Semiotics, Translation, Sociolinguistics, Creative Writing, Modern Culture Philosophy, Philosophy of Art, Cultural Discourse Analysis, English Literature Interpretation

Oct 2007–Jun 2009, Katowice, PL

TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

English specialisation · Bachelor of Arts

RELEVANT COURSES: Pedagogy, Methodology, Linguistics, Contrastive Grammar, Historical Grammar, Voice Emission, Digital Presentation, English Literature, American Literature, Anglophone Realia, German

Oct 2004–Jun 2007, Tychy, PL

Skills

Programming Languages
Workflow
  • Agile Development & Scrum
  • Single sourcing
  • Documentation as Code

Authoring Tools
  • MadCap Flare
  • MS Office
  • Media Wiki
  • Postman
  • Insomnia
  • GitBook
  • HubSpot
  • Document! X

Image Capturing Tools
  • Camtasia
  • Snagit

Collaboration Tools
  • Jira
  • Confluence
  • Salesforce

Interests

When it's time to put aside my single-sourcing-and-content-reusability hat, I really enjoy long board gaming sessions with my friends or beating them in table tennis. I am a true book worm and love all things fantasy, especially if the plot happens on Discworld, Middle Earth or in the Cosmere universe.

When outdoors, I love to complement a trip or a walk with geocaching, and have already managed to log caches in several different countries.

Volunteering work

INSTITUTE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL COMMUNICATORS (ISTC)

Full member
  • Content contributor of a quarterly ISTC magazine Communicator.
  • Organiser of the monthly ISTC North East Area Technical Communication meetups.
Oct, 2014-present, UK

PSYCHATOG

Translator
  • Member of the editorial staff for a website cooperating with Wizards of the Coast, LLC.
Nov 2013–May 2016, online

COMENIUS ASSISTANTSHIP PROJECT

Teaching Assistant
  • Involved in voluntary work, being a part of the European Union project aimed at teachers.
  • Prepared and conducted English classes and cultural workshops for primary school students with implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) methodology.
  • Prepared and provided English training courses for teachers.
Oct 2011–Jun 2012, San Juan, ES

PUBLICATIONS AND WORK SAMPLES

Technical writing samples

More samples available on demand.

Publications