I love being a technical writer. There's nothing I like better than creating the perfect document. Step after step of "Dispense such-and-such..." or "Sonicate at....". There's something innately beautiful about one's protocols or SOPs locking together to form a crystalline flower of logic. And there's nothing like having a dreaded federal auditor from some nefarious government organ like the FDA come on down, read them, and say, "All right. All cut-and-dried here. No findings on this one."
I would disagree with Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s opinion that the technical writer eliminates all vestiges of his or her personality from their work. I would say that people do put their personalities into it, no matter how they may try to avoid it. A Heisenberg Principle of writing, so to speak. At least in my field, most of us are extreme anal retentives. We love our little formulae, and have leeway, as long as the imperative: "Write it so some reasonably educated guy off the street can understand it" is satisfied. People have different ways of achieving this while satisfying the documentary templates that we must fill out. Arguments occur all the time, mainly about whether or not one should say something one way or some other way, or semantic minutia. Usually in such circumstances, the alpha technical writer (usually either the higher ranking or better writer) will win, revising someone's document before submission, the literary equivalent of a brutal maiming. Fortunately, I usually win such debacles.