UX Writer Jobs: Amazon, Botsociety & TransferWise

This newsletter is a day late, a buck short, and I’m writing the report on losing and failing now. Who said starting a letter with Blink 182 lyrics was a bad idea?

These are the dog days of summer but don’t be fooled there are no jobs to apply for. Companies are ramping up their hiring in preparation for the end of year rush. All those beautiful listings are laid out at the end of this letter.

I’m a strong believer in serendipity. Every job I’ve had, and every person who has helped me in my career has happened through serendipity. I’ve never found a job through a traditional job board. A couple of months ago I told my current employer that I wanted to leave. I don’t have anything lined up. But after spending 7 years in various roles in the same company I had reached a ceiling. The work had become repetitive. The challenges we faced as an organisation couldn’t be solved by four people in a room. They took weeks or months, cycling through endless JIRA tickets and Slack messages and bcc-ed emails, to be resolved.

In short: we stopped being a startup and started being a big corporation. Which is unsurprising. We had recently been acquired. I joined the company just after it raised a Series A and stayed through Series B, C, D, E and then acquisition.

So I have started looking for a new role. It is exciting and terrifying in equal measure. But it is the most adult way I’ve ever begun the process of leaving a company.

There are no half-days or fake doctor’s appointments to schedule. No sneaking around behind anyone’s back. I will stay to find my replacement and look for new opportunities in the meantime. It is very refreshing.

The renowned designer Stefan Sagmeister started a tradition of taking a sabbatical every 7 years because, despite all the success achieved with his work he “was bored. The work became repetitive”, and found that in the long run his creative output benefited from those off-work explorations

In the book The Craftsman, sociologist Richard Sennett describes how “skill builds by moving irregularly, and sometimes by taking detours”, which is akin to regularly looking for serendipity in your everyday life. It encourages “the strengthening of current skills and allowing the development of new ones”.

This started to make sense when I applied it to every job I have ever had. I started working at my current company because I wanted to learn how to code and, when I started the course, I got chatting to the Director running the course.

Every internal move I made in the company from that point on was through personal relationships. And I’m sure the same will be the case with wherever I end up next. I’m not leaving it up to chance, I’m looking for the serendipity. But not in that way.

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Develop a system and then stick to it. Robert A. Heinlein had a wonderful system for responding to fan mail. What’s your system for?

Ivan Marinkovic wrote about how they scaled product communications at TransferWise (a product with 750 currency routes, a multi-currency account and a debit card). Related: here are your first 90 days as a UX Writer.

The good folks over at the UX Writers Collective have done the hard graft for you and produced the first, definitive survey of UX Writer salaries around the world. The results skew heavily towards North America but there is some super useful information for everyone in here, regardless of where you live. Don’t go into your next interview or performance review without this info!

Jonathan Deesing wrote about what UX Writers can learn from street signs. Jonny Burch is a designer by trade, an entrepreneur by design but writing is the single most important skill he’s learned in the last year of building Progression (if you run a design team you should get this product on your radar).

And finally, are our lives just comfortable illusions? Maybe, but I’d prefer to just swim in the ocean.

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OpenTable are looking for a Senior Content Strategist in San Francisco. You’ll need 5-8 years of professional writing experience (with 2 years of in-product writing) for this one.

OKCoin are after a UX Writer in San Francisco. You’ll need 5 years of experience for this one. As well as the stomach to handle all the coin-bro banter.

Yelp want a UX Writer for their Local Business vertical. You’ll need a 8-10 years of experience for this one, which almost immediately rules out 98% of applicants.

UserTesting are hiring a UX Writer in San Francisco. You’ll need 3-5 years of experience and familiarity with the Chicago manual. Don’t go chatting AP.

Amazon are after a Senior UX Writer on their Retail team up in Seattle. You’ll have 5 years of experience for this one. There’s also an opening with People Experience and another one in Customer Service which is so hot there isn’t even a job description yet. Stay tuned for that one.

Botsociety might sound like the plot of a dystopian F. Scott Fitzgerald novel but they are actually a company in San Francisco who design top-notch voice and chat experiences. They are looking for a UX Content Writer.

American Express want a Senior UX Writer in New York. You’ll need 2+ years of experience for this one (which seems a little low for a “Senior” position but who am I to judge).

Addepar are on the hunt for a New York-based UX Writer. You’ll be the fourth writer on the team.

VidMob are hiring for a UX Writer with 6+ years of experience.

Nakama are looking for a UX Writer with 5+ years of experience in London. Strong knowledge of the video game, movie, and television industries is preferred.

TransferWise are after a UX Writer in London. You’ll have 3+ years of experience for this one. Qualifications aren’t that important here, if you have a good portfolio then definitely stick an application in. You never know unless you apply.

AirHelp want a UX Writer in Berlin. They offer relocation assistance for the right candidate.

PeopleDoc are hiring for a UX Copywriter in Paris (or remotely in the UK, France or Germany). Experience with HTML is a plus here.

OpenClassrooms want a UX Content Writer in Paris. You’ll have 4+ years of experience as well as good French and English. They qualify for the French Visa Tech program if you’re looking at relocation.

My name is Gordon Macrae. Got a job tip or opinions about UX writing roles? I’d love to hear from you, reply directly to this email.

Good luck out there!