Where editors and developers align

Joanna Brenner — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 15:11:02 +0000

Greetings! I'm (Jo)anna and this is my first post on dev.to.

For the past several years I have been stuck between the "digital media" world and the coding world. I am innately an editor — I've been correcting typos and de-splicing compound sentences wherever I could (there are many a grammatically incorrect Broadway show playbill, for example) whenever I could since the day I learned what a gerund is. As such I plunged into the digital media job industry (formerly known as journalism) the second I graduated from college with my BA in print journalism. I've had a handful of jobs of the digital media sort — reporter, web producer, social media editor, digital strategy editor, etc. Somewhere in the middle of that I started veering off my originally planned editorial path and headed down a more technical road when I started realizing how important web dev was to journalism. Veering turned to turning which led to where I am now — stuck at a crossroads. I want to continue on the technical route but am worried that my brain is incorrectly trained. I am experiencing a heavy amount of imposter syndrome and am unsure how to parlay my journalism/editing experience into a more technical career; and unsure if I want to give up on editorial completely.

I believe editors and developers are more similar than their titles may suggest. Good editors know how to parse down writing to a more fundamental state without losing its flair; they know how to clean up messy writing so it is communicated as efficiently and effectively as possible; and they know how to interpret/break down languages to their core. Is this enough?

Nice to meet you.

DEV Community: Joanna Brenner

Where editors and developers align