How to hire a technical writer
A practical process for devtool teams hiring someone to write tutorials, guides and explainers for developers.
The short answer
Write the brief first, then look where developers already publish. Screen portfolios for runnable code, and pay your finalists to write a test piece on your real product.
Have an engineer run every line of each test before you decide. Interview for judgment, then give the writer product access and time with your engineers from day one.
Updated October 2026. Argot is a technical content agency, so we also compete with hiring. Every figure on this page links to its source.
Decide these before you search
Four answers shape the whole search. Get them wrong and you will hire a good writer for the wrong job.
- What they will write
- Tutorials, guides, explainers and opinion pieces for your blog need a different writer than API reference and product docs. Ask for samples of the kind you need.
- Who reads it
- Developers, and now the coding agents those developers point at your content. Both need steps that work in order, with nothing left out.
- How much there is
- A few pieces a year suits a freelancer. A permanent, full-time workload of content and docs suits a hire.
- Who checks the code
- Someone has to run every snippet before it ships. Decide now whether that is the writer, an engineer, or both.
Still choosing between a freelancer, a hire and an agency? Read agency vs freelancers vs in-house for costs and tradeoffs.
The hiring process, step by step
Seven steps from brief to first published piece. Skip the test and the code check at your own risk.
Write the brief before you post anything
Name the audience, the product area, the formats, how often you publish, and who reviews drafts. A writer can only be judged against a clear job, and a vague post attracts generalists.
Look where developers already write
Job boards are full of writers with no technical samples. Search dev.to, Medium and Hashnode by your stack's tags, check that each author's GitHub matches their posts, and ask your own community. A user who already writes about your product is a strong lead.
Screen portfolios for developer work
Skip anyone whose samples are only marketing copy, however polished. Look for code that looks runnable, steps that explain why as well as how, and honest notes about limits and edge cases.
Pay for a test on your real product
Give each finalist a sandbox account, your docs and one broad topic, and let them propose the outline. Pay the same rate you would pay for a published piece. A writer who needs every detail spelled out will need it every time.
Have an engineer run the code
Ask an engineer to follow the draft from a clean environment. If the code fails or a step is missing, that is what your readers would have found. Grade the test against the criteria below.
Interview for judgment
The test shows whether they can write. The interview shows how they handle unclear products, pushback from engineers and their own mistakes.
Onboard them like an engineer
Give them product access on day one, a short call with the engineer behind each feature they cover, your style guide and a clear review process. Writers who build with the product write better about it.
What to grade the test on
Polish is easy to spot and easy to fake. These three questions separate writers developers will trust.
- Does the code run?
- Every command and snippet should work, in order, from a clean setup. One broken step costs you a developer's trust.
- Does it explain why?
- Good technical writing says why the product matters before it says how to use it. The reader should finish with a mental model, not just a list of steps.
- Could an agent follow it?
- Developers paste docs and tutorials into coding agents. Clear structure, complete steps and exact names let a model act on the page without guessing.
Questions to ask in the interview
Strong candidates answer with product names, real bugs and specific opinions about their own work.
- Walk me through a piece you're proud of. What would you change about it now?
- Tell me about a time an engineer disagreed with how you explained something. What happened?
- Here is a page from our docs. Where would a new developer get stuck?
- How do you check that the code in your drafts works before you send them?
- What would you write first about our product, and why?
- How do you use AI models in your writing, and where do you stop trusting them?
What it costs and how long it takes
Budget for the writer's rate and the weeks the search will take.
Freelance writer
$20 to $45 an hour
Upwork's median for technical writers. Top writers on the platform mostly charge $30 to $60.
Full-time hire
$90,390 median salary
The US median for technical writers in May 2025, before benefits.
Time to hire
Three to eight weeks
A recruiter's estimate for most direct-hire searches, before onboarding.
None of these numbers include your engineers' time spent briefing the writer and checking the code. For agency pricing and a side-by-side view, see agency vs freelancers vs in-house.
Questions
Write a brief, search where developers already publish, screen portfolios for runnable code, pay finalists for a test on your real product, have an engineer run the code in each test, then interview for judgment. Onboard the writer with product access and time with your engineers.
Sources
Technical writer hourly rates, Upwork
Median hourly rates of $20 to $45 for technical writers; top writers range from $15 to $125, most between $30 and $60. Accessed October 2026.
Occupational Outlook Handbook: Technical writers, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Median annual wage of $90,390 in May 2025.
How to hire a technical writer for your tech team, KORE1
A recruiter's estimate of three to eight weeks for most direct-hire technical writer searches. April 2026.
Rather not hire?
Argot builds with your product and runs every line of code before you see a draft. Tell us what you need written. If a hire would suit you better, we'll say so.