Episode #23
A Tech Comm Career Old Enough to Drink with Archer Berryman
Ren talks with Archer Berryman, a documentation leader at Broadcom, about a 21-year career in tech comm that started with an internship at Computer Associates (Archer thought it was a computer repair shop) and has spanned an acquisition, a shift from Word docs to structured CMSs, folding product education into the doc team, and now the AI disruption reshaping the field. Archer talks candor about staying in one place for two decades, why he thinks writers get an unfair reputation for job-hopping less than other disciplines, how his team absorbed Broadcom's product education function after the training org was cut, and his management philosophy of giving writers positive feedback since — like referees — they usually only hear about their work when something's wrong. In this episode Archer's path into tech writing: an English degree, a recruiter call he almost turned down, and 21 years at Computer Associates/Broadcom Why longevity in tech comm often comes down to luck, timing, and finding the "niche nobody else has expertise in" (for Archer, it was early structured/object-oriented CMS adoption) Surviving the Broadcom acquisition and absorbing product education into the documentation team after the training department was cut Lessons learned turning technical writers into instructional designers, and why training content needs a different discipline than reference docs Archer's management philosophy: zero ego, be yourself, and the importance of giving writers positive feedback so the work doesn't become an echo chamber Advice for new writers: use the "gift of time" early in your career to build an advantage, and lean into AI rather than resist it How Archer is guiding his team through the accelerating pace of AI adoption in documentation, and reframing it as time given back rather than an existential threat His hill to die on: documentation is a mirror — a writer's job is to reflect the product honestly, not make it look simpler or more polished than it is
