January 2026

"Building effective portfolios"

This month's topic brings together technical writers to share their insights on building and maintaining effective portfolios. From different career stages and contexts, each writer offers their perspective on what makes a great technical writing portfolio.

Hosted by Brandi Hopkins

In this issue

Your portfolio is pigeonholing you: When good work narrows your path

By Jill Shaheen

Why organizing a portfolio around past job titles and deliverables can box you into one narrow career track, and how to reframe it around the problems you've solved instead.

Jill Shaheen is a documentation leader who's been building content systems, leading documentation teams, and figuring out where infrastructure breaks for nearly 20 years.

Portfolio · LinkedIn

Portfolio refresh

By Shelby White

A behind-the-scenes look at rebuilding a portfolio from a static Azure site into something more interactive, plus the CSS, JavaScript, and security lessons picked up along the way.

Shelby White is a technical writer specializing in security and identity documentation, with a background in cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure troubleshooting.

Portfolio · LinkedIn

Story and Structure: Building a modern technical writing portfolio

By Brandi Hopkins

Why a modern portfolio needs both a narrative (the why behind the work) and a technical structure (like a docs-as-code build) to prove strategic and technical value.

Brandi Hopkins is a senior documentation strategist who builds scalable content systems, with expertise in docs-as-code workflows, AI-assisted documentation, and developer experience.

Portfolio · LinkedIn