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My Automattic Story – How I Got to Be a Code Wrangler

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I often get asked how I got my job at Automattic. Here’s the story:

Quite a few years ago, I was using an earlier version of WordPress to power a personal blog which has since been lost. I got involved with theming for my own use and doing some basic plugins for myself. I don’t think I ever released anything on /extend/ and I did not do much with the community because most of my time was taken up being heavily involved in the Invision Power Board Community.

Flash forward to 2009. I wanted to get more involved with WordPress after using it on a few different personal projects. I signed up for the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and I was accepted. I worked with Andy Skelton and that was what really got me involved with the WordPress community. I worked on an advanced search plugin.

I got even more involved after attending WordCamp NYC 2009 when I was able to speak about my project. I also got to meet some awesome people in person like Jen and Beau. That experience being in NYC and being around so many great people made me realize I wanted to do something in the field with my future (I was just starting college at the time).

In 2010 I released my first patches for core and applied for the the Summer of Code again. I was accepted  a second time, again with Jen and Andy as my mentors. That summer went great and I worked on a Reddit-like voting theme for WordPress. At the start of that summer of code I also attended WordCamp Chicago to talk with Jen a bit about the project. I was able meet some more awesome people that would later become my coworkers too.

My application for that second year of GSoC mentioned Automattic as being my dream job. Sometime in July I was told by Jen that if I was serious about Automattic then I should apply. I was so excited that I worked on updating my resume that night and submitted it. Soon after I started a trial with Nick Momrik and worked on a few different projects. After a sort of lengthy (but fun) trial here I am. :)

At Automattic I’ve worked on our “Janitorial team” which works on internal tools, our “Social team” which did a slew of features such as following, posting, etc, and now our “partnerships team” which works with third-party companies on integrations.



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