Core DITA & XML Skills• DITA authoring concepts: topics, maps, specialization, constraints, reuse strategies.• XML fundamentals: schemas (DTD, XSD), namespaces, validation.• XSLT & XPath: customizing and writing transformations for DITA-OT outputs.• DITA-OT plugins: creating and maintaining custom plugins for specialized publishing needs.• DITA specialization: extending or restricting base DITA for domain-specific needs.Programming & Markup• Java & Ant: understanding DITA-OT's build framework, writing extensions.• HTML5 & CSS3: styling web outputs.• Regular expressions: text manipulation and validation tasks.Publishing & Output Customization• PDF publishing: PDF2 plugin, XSL-FO, or alternative PDF processors (Antenna House, RenderX, FOP).• HTML publishing: customizing HTML5, CHM, WebHelp, or site outputs.• Multi-channel publishing: knowledge of EPUB, Eclipse Help, Markdown, or custom outputs.Tools & Environment• DITA authoring tools: Oxygen XML Author/Editor, FrameMaker, Arbortext.• DITA-OT build management: command line, Ant scripts, Gradle tasks.• Source control: Git, SVN, or similar for managing content and customizations.• Continuous Integration (CI/CD): integrating DITA-OT builds with Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, etc.Quality & Testing• DITA content validation: ensuring content adheres to DITA rules and constraints.• Unit testing for transformations: validating XSLT and plugin changes.• Performance optimization: tuning builds for large document sets.Soft Skills• Analytical thinking: diagnosing publishing issues in transformations.• Collaboration: working with writers, architects, and tool teams.• Documentation: writing clear technical notes on customization and plugins.• Problem-solving mindset: debugging complex build pipelines.