Nigel E. Richardson

nigelerichardson@gmail.com
4006 Biscay Dr.
Austin, TX 78759
512-203-7821

"As a seasoned technical writer and developer of multiple information delivery systems. I’ve tackled challenges at a multitude of hardware and software enterprises, documenting projects from power station safety to online shopping, storage monitoring to ATMs. I like to think I’ve moved beyond the traditional technical writer role as passive apologist, seeing myself instead as an advocate for the user, hoping never again to hear or say the words: 'Why are we making it so difficult for our customers?'"

WORK EXPERIENCE

SolarWinds LLC
Senior Technical Academy Specialist
October 2014 – February 2023
    • Created and maintained administrator, installation, upgrade, getting started, and release documentation for SolarWinds Observability products (IP Address Manager, Security Events Manager, Storage Resource Monitor, Web Performance Monitor, and User Device Tracker) and Serv-U File Server. 
    • Expert MadCap Flare creator, producing advanced online help (HTML5/CSS/JavaScript), and supporting PDF documentation.
    • Created and Managed online Knowledge Base system using Salesforce.
    • Worked with Customer Success, Development, Support, and Sales Engineering teams to maintain all customer-facing solutions from overviews to bugfix notes.
    • Worked on several projects for modernizing existing documentation library to prioritize task-based procedures, including EPPO (Every Page is Page One), and minimalism. 
    • Non-writing projects have included editing articles written by support staff, setting up Google Analytics dashboards, and redesigning landing pages. 

Various
Freelance Technical Writer 
August 2012 – October 2014
    • Created online documentation, API help, user guides, quick-start guides, tutorial videos, and web-based support procedures for companies including HomeAway, Haas Group, SolarBridge, Avention, Brightleaf, and ZogoTech.
    • Provided RoboHelp training

Volusion
Self-Help Support Specialist
February 2010 – June 2012
    • Initially brought in to turn developer-created field help into customer-friendly, task-based online help.
    • Managed customer web portal. 
    • Managed customer knowledge base, and wrote articles, procedures, and user guides on all aspects of eCommerce, aimed particularly at first-time online sellers. 
    • Worked with developers, marketing, social media team, QA and support concierges to create in-product help, support documentation, video scripts, release notes, and newsletter content.

Affinegy
Technical Writer 
January 2009 – May 2009
    • Created in-product help for home networking solutions using RoboHelp and Adobe Creative Suite.

Coremetrics
Technical Writer 
October 2004 – January 2009
    • Designed and maintained online help and printed documentation for behavioral analytics and precision marketing SaaS platform. 
    • Created training materials for developers and customers, operation procedures, and data migration policies.

Pervasive/Data Junction
Technical Writer
2003 – 2004
    • Created documents and web help for data conversion, integration, and migration products.

Nigel E. Richardson Ltd (UK)
Technical Writer
1997 – 2002
    • Researched and produced business procedures, online help, user guides and training materials for hardware, software, and networked systems using RoboHelp and FrameMaker. Trained and supported developers and non-technical staff to create online documentation. Clients included Child Support Agency, NCR, National Air Traffic Systems, GEC Alstom, and the Environment Agency.

CURRENT SKILLS
Acrobat
API Documentation
Flare
GitHub | BitBucket | Perforce
HTML | CSS
JIRA | Confluence
Markdown
Mindforce
Photoshop | Inkscape
RoboHelp
Salesforce
Word | Excel | PowerPoint