The second half of 2018 brought with it a bunch of changes on the professional front for me. 2018 as a whole was pretty tumultuous (that’s a story for another time) but one of the big changes for me personally was I got a new job.
Automattic
At the end of September 2018 I started working as a Happiness Engineer with Automattic (who run WordPress.com amongst other things).
I’ve gone from working for myself to being part of a team of over 800 from all over the world (did I mention that we all work remotely?)
Jordesign
This means that after 10 years of helping churches with design and web development, Jordesign has closed its doors.
I feel truly privileged that for such a long time I was able to use my skills and passion to help churches communicate better on the web, and reach more people. I’ve worked with some great people – and met a bunch of great people in the flesh, and on the web.
I’ll still be a part of some of those communities (like the WordPress for Church FB group) and will still be involved – but not in a professional capacity.
Happiness Engineer!?
So what am I actually doing now, and what the heck is a Happiness Engineer?
Happiness Engineers act as both Customer Support and Technical Support for Automattic’s customers (I support customers using WordPress.com but there are teams also supporting other products).
This means I could be helping our customers with anything ranging from sales or account questions through to SEO help, assistance using the product, or even more technical things like DNS mapping or debugging PHP errors.
It’s hectic, chaotic and full on – but I love it so far. The team of Happiness Engineers is amazing to work with. They’re knowledgeable (but always learning), supportive of one another (helping each other out) and most of all empathetic (going out of their way to help customers and make them happy).
So here’s to something new! I’ll be writing a little more about what it’s like to work for Automattic in the future 👍