About Packt
Packt is a global, technical learning publisher with a turnover of £23m and over 400 employees based across the globe, primarily in India and the UK. Principally serving B2C customers across the world, its major clients also include Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle.
We are a leading publisher of technical learning content with the ability to publish content on new and emerging tech faster than any other publisher in the world. Our mission is to increase the shared value of deep tech knowledge. We are tech content engineers, and we work with some of the most interesting technical minds and ground-breaking creators on the planet. For more details, see www.packt.com
About PCC
Packt Client Content (PCC) creates learning products and books for tech companies to meet their marketing and knowledge goals. Our clients include Microsoft, Red Hat, Oracle, Elastic Search, etc. We create customized products for clients and customers. Clients use PCC products primarily for lead generation and customer acquisition. Our products include e-books, customized or bespoke content, mini-eBooks, whitepapers, blogs, infographics, short guides, etc. We also grant licensing and translation rights for Packt Books. Tech companies prefer PCC’s up-to-date content to stay competitive and relevant in a fast-changing landscape.
Overview
The Development Editor (DE) role is for creative and intelligent individuals who love content editing and are passionate about creating technical content to help the world put software to use and develop new skills. The position provides higher support to our authors, requiring a more pronounced set of skills and honed abilities.
The DE is an experienced editorial team member, working with Content Editors (CE) to deliver quality products such as e-books, infographics, blogs, etc. They are responsible for collaborating with authors to provide high-quality, engaging technical content on time according to the publishing plan.
The DE assumes ownership of editorial quality. They will work with authors on content structure, flow, and relevance and ensure that books adhere to brand guidelines. They will also be assigned more challenging titles or authors who require extra guidance. In addition, they will be given a higher degree of autonomy to sign off on content pieces.
The DE ensures that a book’s vision, passed from the client’s project briefs and the acquisition team, is executed. The DE will conduct thorough research on the technologies their books will cover and work with technical reviewers, copywriters, and other internal stakeholders to ensure high-quality standards.
The role requires exceptional English language and communication skills. A DE should build a good rapport with authors and the various internal stakeholders working on the project. The DE should be able to adopt a leadership role within the team; they should be a process expert who is often the go-to for other editors. It’s imperative that the editor can support less experienced editors. The DE can also be assigned officially as a mentor to other editors who need extra support.
Responsibilities
- Sign off on content to ensure 100 % client/customer satisfaction in terms of high-impact content, exceeding quality standards, meeting brand guidelines, and customer needs (Advanced level)
- Assess the content in the book, ensuring that the content contains all the required information according to the project brief and book outline, as well as identifying and removing irrelevant content (Advance Level)
- Make substantive edits: Work within our product guidelines to ensure that the structure, content, language, style, and presentation of the author’s work are suitable for its intended purpose and readership; check for sentence complexity, conciseness, and clear, logical development of ideas (Advance Level)
- Ensure that content follows content and brand guidelines set out by the client. (Advanced Level)
- Stay updated with brand voice, tone, and style guidelines. (Intermediate Level to Advanced Level)
- Interpret project briefs and convert them into helpful guidance for authors (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Identify opportunities for authors to improve organization, presentation, clarity, and value in the book's content (Advance Level)
- Work with technical reviewers to ensure the technical accuracy of the content and code. This will include collating feedback from peers and technical reviews and ensuring that this is effectively communicated to the author (Advanced Level)
- Own the quality of a book: decide when a draft is suitable for the next stage of development, tackle plagiarism within the manuscript, and ensure end-to-end support for the authors to enhance quality (Advanced level)
- Check content to be free of typos and sentence-level language issues. (Advanced Level)
- Create fluent introductions, lead-in sentences, signposts, transition statements, and conclusions without the author’s aid. (Advanced Level)
- Identify and flag potential quality issues proactively to ED, CPMs, and Project Management Teams, such as author schedule delay, Table of Contents (ToC) or outline non-adherence, poor topic coverage, poor writing, etc. (Intermediate to Advanced Level)
- Take initiative and proactively find solutions beyond the assigned projects. For example, documentation of process steps and documentation for vendors such as copy-editing services. (Intermediate to Advanced Level)
Relationship Management
- Work closely with authors to develop content and provide support through detailed and constructive feedback.
- Provide detailed and constructive feedback to authors using the appropriate tone to suggest the necessary actions that will ensure that the content matches the outline and meets quality standards
- Analyse an author’s language ability, adjusting your communication and feedback styles to fit different authors
- Work closely with all the internal stakeholders, such as the business, operations, and design team
- Manage the relationship with the author throughout the review process
- Provide support to Line Lead, CPMs, and ED during client calls, such as presentation of an edited drafted (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Partner with high-profile authors or authors who are more challenging to work with to ensure a quality product (Intermediate to Advanced Level)
- Adopt a mentoring or leadership role among other CEs. Should be able to support their less-experienced peers (Intermediate to Advance Level)
Technology:
- Develop a sound understanding of the topic and the book through research (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Keep up with market changes that could impact the delivery or success of a book, for example, new technology, features, tools, and version updates (Intermediate to advanced level)
Competencies for DE
[The capability to apply or use the set of related knowledge, skills, and abilities required to successfully perform critical work functions or tasks in a defined work setting]
- Demonstrate advanced written and verbal communication skills with high proficiency in English (Advanced level. For example, British Council Grammar Test scores required are C1-Advanced Level of 500 or above)
- Understand what content means and various long-form and short-form content formats (Intermediate to Advance Level)
- Aware of the client’s brand and brand voice, style, and tone (Intermediate to Advance Level)
- Interpret project briefs and convert them into helpful guidance for authors (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Aware of the client’s brand style guide and content guidelines (Intermediate to Advance Level)
- Focus on quality standards, understand what our clients/customers need, and ensure that our books meet those needs (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Maintain long-standing successful relations with authors and reviewers to develop high-quality content (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Conduct thorough research on the web and learn about new technologies (Intermediate to Advance Level)
- Possess good negotiation skills (Intermediate Level)
- Effectively manage your time (Intermediate to Advance Level)
- Work independently with minimal supervision (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Multi-task, coordinate and manage several projects simultaneously (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Work in a team (Intermediate to Advance Level)
- Demonstrate problem-solving and analytical skills (Intermediate to advanced level)
- Conflict management skills for interacting with difficult authors (Basic to Intermediate Level)
- Leadership and mentoring skills (Basic to Intermediate)
Why work at Packt?
We recognize how important our people are and acknowledge and support the things that are important to them. We focus on the full team member's experience. We aim to create a positive working environment that supports personal and collective development where our people can not only grow their skill sets, continuously challenge themselves, and develop their careers, but also work together as a team and with our customers.
We try to achieve this by:
- Ensuring a positive working environment for all team members, supportive of flexible and remote work.
- Supporting individual development through growth opportunities and internal mobility.
- Encouraging social collaboration within teams and communities and knowledge-sharing.
- Fostering a culture that supports a healthy work-life balance.
We seek to achieve this by:
- Providing a broad range of benefits and initiatives.
- Advocating a healthy lifestyle where wellbeing is seen as an essential responsibility.
- Celebrating success stories and encouraging peer-to-peer recognition.
- Fostering a culture of self-development.
- Providing a work environment where the best idea wins, and challenge is encouraged.
Benefits
You will also have access to a range of flexible benefits that are designed to help you make the most of your time with us.
- Bonus scheme
- 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays)
- Flexible hours: choose how, when and where you work
Salary Range - INR 60K - 75K Gross pay per month (Skills / Experience dependent)