“Technical writing” used to refer to writing instruction manuals for dishwashers and other home appliances. While that meaning of the term still has some currency, these days technical writers tend to work with computer programmers and produce documentation for the enormously complicated software we use in our day-to-day activities. Because software engineers working on particular projects change, this documentation is used to explain to those who join later phases of the project the thinking that went into decisions made about how to write the programs. These jobs require a degree of familiarity with the technology under discussion.