Engineering Technical Writing (in engineering fields) and English

[Femme_physics]

Hi folks!

I've considered a career as a technical writer for the mechatronics/electronics fields for a while now (yes I have engineering education), but I'm wondering if I'd want to work in a European country like Netherlands, Germany...do they need technical writers in English?
Or, do they just employ technical writers in their native languages and get an "English technical translator" later?

I'm really curious about what are the practices in this field. If I'm German and have a firm in Germany, why would I want an English tech writer to wrap up all my material in a nice batch, instead of a German one? What's the logic behind it? I can just pay off a translator later.

Also -- In Israel for example, only 15% of the jobs offered for technical writers in English require that the candidates be fluent in Hebrew as well. Is it about the same in other countries?

 

[chiro]

Hey Femme_physics.

While I can't answer your question in any detail, I would remind you that the business language of the world is English and this has a lot of impact on who uses the language and for what purpose.

 

[Femme_physics]

Hi chrio.

While I can't answer your question in any detail, I would remind you that the business language of the world is English and this has a lot of impact on who uses the language and for what purpose.

True...true. I'd imagine that English has some sort of upmarket value in this industry...
Well then, provided those European companies don't require me to be native in their country language/s (at least not all of them), I'm rather inspired about giving it a shot.

Still if anyone has anything more to add about this topic, would love to read it.

 

[I like Serena]

In the Netherlands engineers are mostly assumed to be fluent in English.
Furthermore, most companies will accept anyone that is fluent in English, regardless of whether they are fluent in Dutch.