10 positions in the translation industry to boost your career

Translators are the backbone of the translation industry, but there are many other relevant and well-paid positions in this sector you may not have heard of or thought you could never succeed in.

That is why in this blog post we've gathered interviews with eleven active professionals who reveal the ins and outs of their unique roles, their daily experiences, and what they love about their work.

Plus, in this article we bring you the latest salary ranges from the 2022 Salary report by Adaptive, providing a realistic glimpse into the rewards that await you in this dynamic industry.

Get ready to unlock the secrets of a successful career in the translation industry!

Disclaimer: Salary ranges mentioned are based on the 2022 Salary report published by Adaptive, a Language Services Recruitment Agency. Individual salaries may vary based on experience, specialization, location, and market conditions.

Table of contents:

1. Localization Manager

2. Globalization Director

3. Localization Specialist

4. Project Manager

5. UX Localization Specialist

6. SEO Content Writer/Translator

7. Localization Engineer

8. Terminologist

9. Translation Vendor Manager

10. Agency Founder/CEO

Localization Manager

Salary range (on the supply chain side): $+90k in the US, £40-60k in the UK, €35-55k in Italy and €38-55k in Spain

“The simple answer is that a localization manager is the person responsible for translation and localization within a company. The more complex answer is that, depending on the maturity level of the company, your role may vary”, explains Julio Leal, Localization Manager at Spendesk.

“In more advanced companies, you would manage all the different language teams, hire people and build relationships with product, marketing, legal, and communication departments”, adds Leal.

“I had no idea what a localization manager was when I started in the translation industry. My background is in translation and interpreting, but it wasn't until I started working in the industry that I discovered that there were other roles out there”, says Leal, who began as a translator and moved into project management before becoming a localization manager at several startups.

His best advice for aspiring localization managers? “The more you know about the different teams you work with, the better”, concludes Leal. “That’s why I consider myself an ongoing learner”.

Do you want to learn the skills to land the best-paid jobs in the translation industry?

Check out Julio Leal's full interview on our YouTube channel

Learn to manage multilingual content with localization experts working for major international brands by attending our Localization Management Academy!

Explore the program and enroll today!

Globalization Director

Salary range: $120-150k in the US, £65-100k in the UK, €45-65k in Italy, and €50-70k in Spain.

“In my role as Globalization Director, I am responsible for implementing and continuously innovating the Globalization strategy, with a focus on game global readiness, Globalization services management, and inclusive content creation/coordination”, says Miguel Sepulveda, Globalization Director at King.

“A typical day as a Globalization Director involves overseeing key metrics, strategizing for future markets, advising on content creation, managing relationships with external partners, collaborating with different departments, staying updated on industry trends, and being available to support my direct reports from a people management perspective”, explains Sepulveda, who also shares his findings on LinkedIn and on his blog, yolocalizo.

“As a Globalization director, having the opportunity to lead a team with diverse skills and personalities has greatly helped me develop my skills in empathy, communication, and coaching. It has also made me very resilient! I believe that working in the localization industry I developed a strong sense of perseverance and resilience in my personality. I don't give up easily in my personal goals and I think this is related to the skills I developed in my career as Localization professional”, concludes Sepulveda.

P.S. Miguel Sepulveda will be teaching at the Localization Management Academy! Take a look at the rest of our stellar team of successful Localization Managers.

Localization Specialist

Salary range: $75-90k in the US, £38-55k in the UK, €38-45k in Italy and €38-45k in Spain

“The core of my job is making sure that any and all content that is produced for the Spanish market is properly adapted”, explains Daniel Collado, Content and Localization Specialist at Mailgun by Sinch. His other responsibilities include carrying out a localized content strategy for Mailjet’s blog and ensuring language quality and tone of voice consistency across the different media where content is hosted.

In a Localization Specialist's day-to-day life, “there is no time for boredom. We have translations/localizations to do and/or edit. We have articles to draft and write for the Mailjet blog. Also, there are long-term projects and housekeeping tasks such as continually improving our internal glossary, or keeping tabs on metrics for our blogs, or helping with some website or in-app communications”, affirms Collado.

The best part of his job? “Allowing me to focus on all the ins and outs of the current SEO and SEA trends, which will forever affect how I face a localization project and develop a sense of ownership that I might have been lacking for certain projects, and to feel the confidence to speak up when I believe a different approach might be better. It has also given me the chance to further improve both my writing skills and my strategic thinking”, says Collado.

Project Manager

Salary range: $65-80k in the US, £25-35k in the UK, €25-30k in Italy, and €26-35k in Spain.

“I have to say I started in the translation industry as a translator/subtitler/interpreter. Just two months were enough to find out that I hated translating and being a freelancer. Then, I found my first job as a project coordinator. When I went to that interview, I didn’t even know what I was applying to. I got the job and discovered my best match”, says Lucía Gutiérrez Franco, Senior Project Manager at Beluga Linguistics.

As a project manager, Gutiérrez Franco believes that problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, and being knowledgeable about the latest developments in the translation industry are among the qualities a successful project manager needs to possess.

“A project hardly ever goes smoothly. A project manager knows and likes this. I always compare my job as a project manager with a tennis player. I feel like Rafael Nadal sometimes hitting balls back to the other court and winning the match at the end of the day. Living next to a padel court also helps this feeling!”, jokes Gutiérrez Franco.

“All in all, I wouldn’t change my career as a project manager. Learn how to deal with stress, juggle between projects, people, and emails, empathize with people, be firm yet compassionate… make it worth it and help you stay on your toes. The balancing a project manager needs between professional and personal skills is one the most important things that have changed my career for the better”, states Gutiérrez Franco.

Become familiar with the localization industry, how projects are managed, the tools of the trade, and how to land a job by taking the Localization Project Management course in our Localization Management Academy!

UX Localization Specialist

As a UX Localization Specialist, Eva Katernberg’s job is to translate apps and software products, and adapt the copy to the target market, always keeping the end-user in mind to provide the best user experience (UX) possible in the target language.

On a typical day, she usually alternates between answering emails, translating software strings, and the occasional client call. “But I also have time for my hobbies like going to the gym and seeing my friends!”, she reassures.

In reflecting on the silver lining of her freelance lifestyle, she points out that being a freelance UX Localization Specialist has given her so much more freedom than traditional office work. “I also earn more money than in a traditional career (at least for now!) and I can work on projects that I really like," she concludes.

Learn what User Experience Design is and how you can leverage their techniques and principles to become a better localization specialist. Enroll in Eva’s course “UX Writing and Research for Localization”!

SEO Content Writer/Translator

“As an SEO content writer/translator, I focus on creating SEO-friendly content for websites to improve their visibility and ranking in search engine results”, explains David Garcia Ruiz.

His daily tasks include:

Conducting keyword research to identify the terms and phrases that potential users are searching for in search engines.
Writing high-quality, engaging, and relevant content for websites, including blogs and landing pages.
Providing SEO translation services from English into Spanish and re-optimization services, including on-page SEO and using insights and metrics to improve existing content.

“The truth about SEO is that it is a long-term game: Most times it can take between 3 and 6 months to see good results with the right strategy (and budget!). This means that I usually collaborate with my clients for a minimum period of time of 6 months developing good relationships and working with reasonable deadlines. Plus, these working relationships provide me with a steady income and I do not depend on one-off projects to pay my bills like when I was a translator”, explains Garcia Ruiz, who runs his own company, Trust Your Brand.

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Localization Engineer

Salary range: $80-100k in the US, £28-45k in the UK, €30-36k in Italy, and €25-38k in Spain.

“Being a graduate in Translation and Interpretation and working in localization engineering brings together two seemingly opposite worlds by nature: humanities and cutting-edge technology”, says Víctor Parra, Senior Localization Engineer at TransPerfect.

His job consists in ensuring the smoothest possible localization process, being involved from the initial project contact to completion. His main tasks include file and support resources preparation, translation memory management, quality assurance tasks and automating processes using data-oriented programming languages to eliminate repetitive manual tasks.

I am passionate about linguistics because I have always regarded it as a precise science, much like mathematics, with its multitude of units to manipulate and shape discourse. Additionally, I am fascinated by computer science—understanding how things work, staying updated on the latest technological advancements, and applying them to real-world scenarios. This job has allowed me to transform my hobby into my profession, fostering a proactive approach in my work”, concludes Parra.

Terminologist

“Terminology and translation are really linked. During my translation studies, I learned how to search for information, find reliable sources and deeply understand texts. This is helpful in terminology when the terminologist is trying to understand a concept and create its definition based on different sources. And of course, as I work in a multilingual environment, my language skills are very also useful”, says Lucy Walhain, Terminologist at the European Union’s Publications Office.

“Our work here is to maintain controlled vocabularies (authority lists, taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies, etc.). I check that all reference data and metadata are compliant with the ISO standards for terminology. This ranges from creating concepts and their terms to creating definitions for already existing ones”, she explains.

If you wish to follow her steps, she suggests applying for an internship at the Terminology coordination unit at the European Union. “Their website also contains a lot of useful information to find out more about terminology work and terminological resources”, she adds.

Learn where to look for the most accurate and appropriate translations of complex terms when dealing with specialized translations in Lucy Makepeace’s course “Translating Terminology. Best Resources!

9. Translation Vendor Manager

Salary range: $60-85k in the US, £30-35k in the UK, €25-35k in Italy and Spain.

“Whether they are called Vendor Managers, Talent Managers, or Supply Chain Managers, all these positions have one thing in common: the management of a company's pool of external language service providers”, explains Giada Gerotto, Vendor manager/Community manager at Creative Words.

“Our first responsibility is to select the people or companies to whom we think our company should subcontract language work. We skim their CVs, negotiate rates, assist them with onboarding and testing, and generally make their transition to our company as smooth and efficient as possible”, adds Gerotto.

“We also ensure that these people find a place on projects by helping the project management team tap into the best talent available for each type of assignment. Often, this is achieved by promptly and comprehensively updating the company's TMS, BMS, or other databases”, says Gerotto.

“My experience in Vendor Management comes at a time when great change is taking place in the market, and in an organization that has always given me the freedom to explore new ideas. As a whole, I enjoy this role, which has an important analytical component, as well as a strong relational and persuasive component", concludes Gerotto.

In fact, at Creative Words, her official job title is Community Manager, which emphasizes that Vendor Managers have a major responsibility to convey a sense of cohesion and teamwork within the company's translator community.

Hear from 40 Vendor Managers from across the globe on what they're on the lookout for in Giada Gerotto’s course “How to Gain and Retain Agency Customers”.

10. Agency founder/CEO

Salary range: $+180k in the US, £+120k in the UK, €+120k in Italy and €+110kSpain

"One day at the end of 2018, as I was looking to buy climbing shoes online, I ended up on a very poorly translated website. I did some research, and I found that it happened on many websites around the world. With my translation expertise and love of the outdoors, I realized this could fill this gap. I have been doing this with The Action Sports Translator (TAST) ever since," says agency founder Martina Russo.

Before TAST, Russo founded another marketing agency, Moving Words, specialized in SEO content marketing translation and product localization for martech SaaS companies, such as Shopify, ActiveCampaign, and Ubersuggest.

Managing two translation agencies, her days are quite packed, but she always finds time to enjoy the outdoors.

"In the era of Deepl and ChatGPT, translators must specialize. Having a specialty has changed my life, made me earn more, and have a greater impact on my community. For us at TAST, it's extremely satisfying to work for the brand we use to climb, surf, hike, skate, run, or cycle. In the end, we are the clients of our clients. It comes full circle, and I think it's beautiful", states Russo.

Founding a translation agency also changed Nicola Calabrese's life.

"From the start of my freelance translation/copywriting career, I had the idea of starting some kind of agency. Then, some direct clients with whom I was doing well asked if I could also handle other languages. I began getting more work than I could handle on my own, so I started getting others involved", explains Calabrese, CEO of Undertow.

"Meanwhile, I continued to specialize in localization (strategy and technology, in particular) and study business management. Over the years, I saw an opportunity to offer a more strategic and business-focused approach to localization", states Calabrese, whose long-term personal career plan includes the possibility to vary a lot from team management to client consulting and agency development.

"The best part of owning a translation agency is having a team. On the one hand, I'm no longer alone, so I don't run the risk of feeling isolated, which can sometimes happen when working as a freelance translator. On the other hand, I also know that if I'm sick or away, someone else will take care of my clients and projects. Furthermore, work volume uncertainties have been reduced, so I am less stressed", concludes Calabrese.

For more wisdom from Nicola, check out his transcreation and subtitling courses (only available in Italian!).

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