Hi Diego,

Diego Schiavon said:

- What are some common tasks that you do in your work?

The tasks differ from supporting Project Managers to implementing new workflows, testing, bug fixing, writing scripts, defining filetypes and finding workarounds for special problems. It all depends on the environment and CAT-Tool and/or TMS you are working with.

Diego Schiavon said:

- What is the preferred background for a LE?

Well, that's hard to say. If you have a talent for IT, you can come from any kind of field and learn it on the way. Ideally you have an IT-background with good linguistic and soft skills.

Diego Schiavon said:

- What programming languages do you use?

This again depends on the environment you are working on, mostly it should be enough to know a scripting language like Python or Javascript. Now I've started with Visual Basic.NET, because it is useful for the latest SDL products if you combine it with Visual Studio 2019 and the templates provided by SDL.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sdl.TradosStudiotemplatesforVisualStudio

Diego Schiavon said:

- What tools and specifications do you need to know?

I'm gonna be annoying, but this again depends on the environment and CAT Tool/TMS you are working with. What you definitely need to know is XML, XLIFF, TMX and TBX. These are the main filetypes within localization industry. Of course, there are others, but these are the basics. Regular expressions are also necessary.

Diego Schiavon said:

- Can you sketch your career until now?

Sure, I've done Translation and interpreting MA on the University of Szeged, Hungary, and Webdesign and webprogramming in a private school. Firstly I did some freelance translation and webprogramming, but I realized that I'm not the guy who can sit 8 hours day by day alone. I was so lucky, that a bigger LSP, which was a department of a huge US company, was looking for a localization engineer and they hired me. There I met Greta in the comments below, still she is one of the best (ex)colleagues ever.  Unfortunately they closed this department and I was again very lucky to become a Language Technology Expert at tsd Technik-Sprachendiest GmbH in Cologne, Germany. This last sentence also answered your last question, I'm an employee.

I hope that I could give you some useful information on becoming a localization engineer.

If you are interested in IT and you like languages, I can tell you that this is your job.

I wish you good luck on your journey.

Best regards,

Adam

Hello Adam,

Thank you for your exhaustive reply. What you write is quite encouraging, I think I check many of the boxes, if only for an entry-level position.

>Ideally you have an IT-background with good linguistic and soft skills.

I do not have an IT background, but still probably more so than someone with only linguistic skills.

>mostly it should be enough to know a scripting language like Python or Javascript [... ] What you definitely need to know is XML, XLIFF, TMX and TBX.

That's encouraging.

How about tools? How much do you rely on Passolo?

And how do you see the future of the role of localization engineer?

Cheers,

Diego

Hi Diego,

no worries, I share with you what I know, altough I have to admit that I'm only since 2016 into localization engineering.

Diego Schiavon said:

How about tools? How much do you rely on Passolo?

There are lots of tools you can use as a localization engineer. I think that Beyond Compare, Agent Ransack, Textcrawler, Glossary Converter, Regex Buddy and a proper file manager can help you out a lot. As for CAT tools I have more experience in SDL products and memoQ, and some less in Across and Star Transit. I used Passolo for certain problems and localization tasks, too, but not that keenly.

Diego Schiavon said:

And how do you see the future of the role of localization engineer?

It's hard to say as the industry is changing so fast. What I can see, and this is my personal opinion, is that cloud-technology, AI and MT will form the future of localization industry, too. If I'm optimistic, there will be a need for localization engineers for a long time, hand in hand with the changes of the industry. If I'm pessimistic, technological singularity will make localization engineering disappear, as well as almost every IT job - the question is when this happens. So there will be more and more automated and optimized workflows and tasks, and localization engineers will have to adapt.

Best regards,

Adam

Hi @Diego Schiavon and @ Ádám Biczó ,

regarding tools: when speaking about localization engineering, I always mention and recommend the Okapi Framework (https://okapiframework.org/).

And the members of the Okapi Tools users group might actually be able to give Diego more tipps on his planned career as localization engineer.

Good luck :-)

Kind regards

Christine

Hi Christine,

Thank you for the suggestion, I will look into the Okapi framework and have a look at their user group.

Best regards,

Diego

Hmmm, actually, I have used some of the Okapi tools maybe like 10 times only during the 20 years... NEVER needed to use it for any of the common daily tasks.

The very weird usage principle of Rainbow discouraged me extremely strongly from using it :(

And I would rather NOT recommend Okapi tools to beginners... they may get used to weird and never-seen-anywhere-else habits :-\

Hi Evzen,
I have attended the Localization UnConference last Friday in Munich, and in the Open Source talk, there has been quite a number of fans of Okapi tools, and some tool providers who have integrated some components into their (open source) solutions.

I also know that the localization department of a large German software company is using the Okapi tools.

And I have also seen job announcements for localization engineers where familiarity with the Okapi tools was listed as nice-to-have.

Well, let Diego judge himself ;-)

Kind regards

Christine

Hallo Christine Bruckner and Diego Schiavon

I am also an Okapi user. The initial threshold is high because the UI and many principles are really weird (somebody write a good manual for beginners once!), but it is really useful, like a sack full of conversion tools. I understand Evzen's dislike, although I don't share it (anymore). Once you're through the surf, it's a powerful, fun tool.

The Okapi-user group had to leave Yahoo because they seem to be closing their groups down. okapi-users is now at groups.google.com.

Daniel

Just out of curiosity, what tasks do you use Okapi tools for?

Evzen Polenka

File conversions mostly. Example is that Excel table with html code in the Excel cells that was discussed on this forum recently. Bilingual XML files with proper segmentation -> XLIFF. (Segment each language, Auto-align, create bilingual XLIFF. Or make TMX out of target language segements to present to translator when working with the (then monolingual) XML. That is the standard. Pre-processing of XML files sometimes - I can store any number of Regex in Rainbow and still edit them if necessary. I don't have another tool to do that with unless I want to use AHK, which I find cumbersome with Regex.

I also use Ratel to work on segmentation rules. Very convenient. .NET Regex.

Yes, and then odd bits and pieces where Studio does not provide a solution.

Daniel

Evzen Polenka

File conversions mostly. Example is that Excel table with html code in the Excel cells that was discussed on this forum recently. Bilingual XML files with proper segmentation -> XLIFF. (Segment each language, Auto-align, create bilingual XLIFF. Or make TMX out of target language segements to present to translator when working with the (then monolingual) XML. That is the standard. Pre-processing of XML files sometimes - I can store any number of Regex in Rainbow and still edit them if necessary. I don't have another tool to do that with unless I want to use AHK, which I find cumbersome with Regex.

I also use Ratel to work on segmentation rules. Very convenient. .NET Regex.

Yes, and then odd bits and pieces where Studio does not provide a solution.

Daniel