Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Written Translation Officer

🎯 Role Definition

The Written Translation Officer is responsible for producing, managing and assuring the quality of translated written materials across multiple languages and content types. This role ensures accurate, culturally appropriate and consistent translations that meet organizational standards, deadlines and compliance requirements. The officer will work closely with subject-matter experts, project managers and external vendors to maintain translation memories, terminology databases, and style guides while optimizing workflows with CAT tools and localization platforms.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior Translator / Bilingual Content Assistant with 1–3 years’ experience
Language Specialist or Editorial Assistant in a communications team
Graduate in Translation, Applied Linguistics, or a related field entering localization

Advancement To:

Senior Translator / Lead Translator
Localization Manager or Translation Project Manager
Language Quality Assurance Lead or Terminology/Glossary Manager

Lateral Moves:

Localization Engineer (for candidates with technical skills)
Content Strategist or Communications Specialist with multilingual remit

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Translate complex written materials from source languages into target languages with full fidelity to meaning, tone and purpose, ensuring consistency with organizational style guides and brand voice.
Review, edit and proofread translations produced by internal teams or external vendors to ensure linguistic accuracy, appropriate register and cultural relevance before publication.
Maintain and update translation memories (TMs), glossaries and terminology databases to maximize reuse and consistency across projects and reduce translation costs.
Implement and manage quality assurance (QA) processes for translated content, including linguistic QA, formatting checks and compliance verification against regulatory or legal requirements.
Coordinate with subject-matter experts, legal counsel and technical authors to verify terminology, industry-specific concepts and precise phrasing in regulated or specialized documents.
Prepare and manage localization-ready files (e.g., XML, HTML, XLIFF, INDD exports) and ensure that exported/imported files preserve formatting, metadata and segmentation.
Create and maintain comprehensive style guides and language-specific briefs for translators and reviewers to ensure consistent tone, punctuation, capitalization and number/date formats.
Operate and optimize computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools and localization platforms (e.g., SDL Trados, memoQ, Memsource, Wordfast) to track progress, manage TMs and apply QA checks.
Manage relationships with external language service providers (LSPs), freelance translators and reviewers; negotiate rates, set deadlines and monitor delivery quality against SLAs.
Perform linguistic QA on machine translation outputs and post-edit MT (PEMT) to bring automated translations up to publishable standard while tracking productivity and quality metrics.
Localize user-facing content, including manuals, web pages, UI strings, marketing copy and training materials, adapting content for cultural appropriateness and market expectations.
Conduct terminology research and create new glossary entries based on industry standards, client preferences and evolving product/service features.
Track and report on translation KPIs such as turnaround time, first-pass quality, cost-per-word and TM leverage, and use these metrics to drive continuous improvement initiatives.
Manage multilingual publication workflows and calendars, prioritizing tasks, assigning work and coordinating cross-functional reviews to meet release schedules.
Ensure confidentiality and security of sensitive translated materials by following data-handling protocols, NDAs and access controls for translation platforms.
Provide training, feedback and mentoring to junior translators and reviewers to raise overall team capability and maintain consistent quality standards.
Create clear project briefs and linguistic instructions for complex translations, including context, tone, audience, and examples of preferred phrasing to guide translators and reviewers.
Resolve linguistic disputes and feedback loops by adjudicating between reviewers, clients and translators, documenting final decisions and updating style materials accordingly.
Adapt and transcreate marketing and creative copy to maintain persuasive intent, emotional resonance and brand messaging across target languages and markets.
Collaborate with product, marketing and customer support teams to prioritize translation backlogs and to ensure timely go-to-market readiness for multilingual launches.
Conduct post-publication reviews and gather user feedback to identify content improvements, localization defects and opportunities for enhanced clarity or cultural fit.
Stay current with industry trends in translation technology, machine translation, localization engineering and language standards to recommend process, tool or vendor improvements.
Assist in budgeting and forecasting translation spend, including vendor invoicing validation, cost optimization through TM leverage and assessment of in-house vs. outsourced capacity.

Secondary Functions

Create and maintain documentation of translation processes and SOPs to support onboarding and scale translation operations.
Support ad-hoc multilingual content requests from internal stakeholders and respond to urgent translation needs within established SLAs.
Participate in cross-functional projects that require language expertise, including product launches, compliance reviews and international marketing campaigns.
Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives by piloting new CAT tools, plugins or automation workflows and documenting impact on quality and throughput.
Support the development and maintenance of accessible content by ensuring translations adhere to accessibility guidelines (e.g., alt text, plain language where appropriate).
Assist in vendor selection processes by preparing RFPs, evaluating vendor samples and presenting recommendations based on quality, capacity and cost.
Provide periodic training sessions on translation tools, quality expectations and terminology management for non-linguist stakeholders.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Native or near-native fluency in one or more target languages and excellent command of the source language(s) used by the organization.
Professional translation and editing experience across multiple genres (technical, legal, marketing, product documentation).
Proficiency with CAT tools such as SDL Trados Studio, memoQ, Memsource (Phrase), Wordfast or Smartcat and ability to build and maintain translation memories.
Experience with localization file formats and tooling (XLIFF, XML, HTML, InDesign exports) and basic familiarity with markup to preserve formatting.
Terminology management experience, including creating, maintaining and enforcing glossaries and style guides.
Familiarity with machine translation and post-editing workflows (PEMT), including MT engines and quality benchmarking for MT output.
Experience with linguistic QA tools (e.g., Xbench, Verifika, QADistiller) and automated QA checks for consistency, numbers, and tags.
Working knowledge of content management systems (CMS), version control and publishing pipelines for multilingual content deployment.
Strong research skills to resolve subject matter terminology and to verify regulatory or technical references.
Ability to prepare and interpret translation project briefs, cost estimates, and resource plans; experience with vendor management and SLA enforcement.
Basic data analysis skills to track translation metrics and to report on KPIs (turnaround times, cost per word, TM leverage).

Soft Skills

Exceptional attention to detail and a consistent focus on linguistic accuracy and quality assurance.
Strong project coordination and time-management skills with the ability to manage competing priorities and tight deadlines.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills for collaborating with cross-functional teams and providing clear feedback to linguists.
Cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural communication skills to ensure localized copy is culturally appropriate and effective.
Problem-solving mindset and the ability to make pragmatic decisions under ambiguous or fast-changing requirements.
Client-service orientation with a collaborative approach to meet internal and external stakeholder expectations.
Adaptability and continuous-learning attitude to adopt new tools, processes and language technologies.
Negotiation and vendor relationship management skills to secure high-quality language services within budget.
Coaching and mentoring capability to develop junior linguists’ skills and maintain team quality standards.
Meticulous documentation skills to produce clear SOPs, glossaries and translation briefs.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Translation, Linguistics, Languages, Applied Linguistics, Communication or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Translation Studies, Conference/Technical Translation, Localization, Comparative Linguistics, or a related discipline.
Professional certification (e.g., ATA, ITI, CIOL, Chartered Institute of Linguists, or vendor-specific CAT tool certifications).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Translation and Interpreting
Applied Linguistics
Modern Languages (e.g., Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian)
Technical Communication
International Relations, Law or Subject-matter degrees for specialized translation domains

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years of professional written translation and editing experience for mid-level roles; 5+ years preferred for senior positions.

Preferred:

Proven experience managing translation projects, translation memories and vendor relationships in agencies, corporate language teams or international organizations.
Demonstrated experience localizing digital content (web, software UI, mobile apps) and working with localization engineering teams.
Portfolio or samples of translated work across multiple content types and industries, with references to demonstrate quality and reliability.