At WordPress, Happiness is Automattic

Posted byMattPosted inMoblog

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On the first of May, I started a new job at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. I was hired as a “Code Wrangler,” but to date I have not written a lick of code. This is because for the first three weeks new employees must participate in a customer support rotation. I know what you are thinking: “Let the software engineers communicate directly with customers? I saw Office Space, so I know that’s a bad idea!” or maybe “Bummer, customer service is a thankless soul-sucking quagmire of loathsomeness.” Surprisingly, neither one of these normally valid assumptions is true in this case. So what makes working at Automattic so special that software engineers can enjoy communicating directly with users and customer service ends up being rewarding and fun? Quite a few things actually.

The customer service team is known as the “Happiness Team,” and its members are “Happiness Engineers.” When I…

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Published by Matt

In 2002 I started contributing to Open Source software, and life has just gotten better from there. Co-founder of WordPress, founder Automattic.

11 thoughts on “At WordPress, Happiness is Automattic”

  9. I’m a mainframe programmer at a financial company and have dealt with our larger clients many times. Makes for a more well rounded appreciation of our company and what we do. I love coding but it was nice to use my people skills as well. The interactions, in my opinion, makes you a better programmer. You understand the business requirements better. But coding will always be my first love. 🙂

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