If I can ask...what do you make as a technical writer relative to what you could be making if you were an average person doing the actual technical job, e.g. what is the work and wage like to write about JavaScript as opposed to being a front-end developer at the average tech company?
I think wallflower is right: Technical writers generally get paid less than what developers make. But every company is different. At Compose.io, for example, I think it could be more of a blended position, which is to say that you could be writing documentation and contributing to the codebase [1]. There may not be much of a pay gap at companies like that.
There are also other benefits. Technical writing positions are generally extremely low stress jobs where you have ample time to finish your work, learn new technologies, etc. And as I mentioned before, many of these positions are remote, so you have the opportunity to live in places with low costs of living.
