1.
All You Ever Wanted to
Know About
Erick Hitter
Design Engineer on Team Custom

2.
History
• 2003: WordPress 0.71 released as a fork of b2
• 2005: Matt Mullenweg founded Automattic while
still working at CNET
• 2007: Gravatar acquired
• 2008: BuddyPress, IntenseDebate, and Polldaddy
acquired
• 2010: VaultPress launches
• 2010: WordPress Foundation launches, taking
ownership of WordPress trademarks

3.
Quick Stats
• Our sites are visited
• 128 employees by 659 million people
each month
• 26 countries
• WordPress as a
• 18 timezones platform now powers
16.7% of the web

4.
Where We Work

5.
How We Work
• Small teams, generally around six people
• Quick project sprints
• High level of autonomy and self management

6.
How We Communicate
• P2 (p2theme.com) – for teams and company as
a whole
• IRC – also for teams and company as a whole
• Skype – one-on-one or small-group chat
• Email – almost exclusively for notifications

7.
How We Meet
• One all-company meetup per year
• Team-specific meetups multiple times per year

8.
How We Hire
• Applications via automattic.com
• Interview with a team lead in a similar role
• Trial projects to determine fit for both parties
• Followup interview with team lead
• Final interview with Matt if team lead
recommends hiring
• Everyone hired does a 3-week support rotation

9.
Our Connection to the
WordPress Project
• WordPress is an open-source web publishing
platform, whose trademarks are owned by the
WordPress Foundation.
• WordPress.com is a commercial service built on
the WordPress software.
• Automattic employees contribute to the project.
• The WordPress community directs the project’s
development.

10.
Questions?
@ethitter
http://www.ethitter.com
erick@automattic.com