About

About

A Few Words About Me

Hello. I’m Dachary Carey. I write stuff. It’s my thing.

Also, I love coffee.

Good coffee, though. None of this mass-produced Dunkin’ Donuts swill. (Yes, I live in New England and am well-aware of the blasphemy in that statement. I stand by it.)

The amount of stuff I write may be in direct proportion to the amount of coffee I’ve had today.

I’m married to the inestimable Kay Rhodes. We love to travel. If you like to read about travel, or see pretty travel pics, check out our travel site: Corporate Runaways.

We have two dogs (Lita, a Lab/Beagle mix, and Maui, an English Springer Spaniel), and a cat (Ash, a Maine Coone). I talk about them - maybe a little more than I should.

Still here? Ok. On to the slightly more boring stuff:

I’m a professional writer. I’ve been writing for over 20 years, and I quit my day job to do it professionally over 15 years ago. Wow. I’m getting old. I transitioned to focus on software technical documentation in 2016, and joined the Developer Education team at MongoDB at the beginning of 2021.

I used to keep a portfolio of my work on my website, but the availability of the sources kept changing, which made lots of broken links… that didn’t make anyone happy.

For details, check out my Technical Writing page. Before the current gig, I’ve written things like:

  • Technical writing, such as procedure guides, enterprise SaaS app software documentation, spec documents, and online help portals
  • Developer-focused documentation, including API docs
  • Lots of legal writing
  • Far too much writing for the funeral industry
  • Writing about precious metals
  • Investment topics
  • Ghostwriting business books
  • Fashion writing (I was actually the world’s foremost expert on bras a few years ago)
  • Various forms of marketing writing, from product copy to newsletters to press releases

My specialty has become quickly understanding difficult or technical topics, and then finding an accessible way to communicate them to non-technical readers. I’m great at organizing large volumes of information, and setting up tools and processes. Up until MongoDB, I have been the first technical writer, and even at MongoDB, I was the first writer on a team of developers. I love having a role that lets me leverage my writing skills while also writing code and example apps - this is my sweet spot.

Outside of writing docs, I’ve been getting more into coding. I’ve released one iOS app to the app store, and have another in the works. I live on a beautiful property in Vermont, where I get to putter around with my tractor and do various projects. I’m big into DIY, from converting an ambulance to an RV to wrenching on my motorcycles to working on stuff around the house. I love playing D&D, and enjoy painting minis. And I’m a great baker. Let me make you some cookies sometime!