Tag: Automattic

An Automattic 6+ Months

Nick Momrik5 Comments

Leaving my old job at SVSU to work for Automattic has been great. I haven’t had a single regret with my decision.

The company has changed a lot in the short time I’ve been there. The number of Automatticians has grown from less than 20 to over 30. We acquired BuddyPress and IntenseDebate. One of our main projects, WordPress.com contintues to see incredible growth, so we decided to provide 24/7 support.

My title is Happiness Engineer, which isn’t an ordinary job title. So what do I do on a daily basis? I provide support to WordPress.com users and people running the self-hosted version of WordPress. I work with our VIP hosting clients, such as Fox News, CNN, NFL, NY Times, and many others. We review their theme, plugins, and any content they want to import from a previous blog. I fix some of the minor bugs and theme issues on WordPress.com and submit patches to WordPress.org if the bug is a problem there as well. I train all new employees who are required to provide support for their first 3 weeks. In general, I try to do whatever I can to make our users happy.

The problems and questions from users are always changing. Everyday is different and comes with new challenges. This keeps work interesting. I can honestly say I’ve never been bored.

When I started working for Automattic, it took some time getting used to working from home, keeping track of all of our internal information, and doing all communication with my coworkers online. Once you get in the swing of things, you’d be surprised how well online communication works for a virtual company. Would I like to have more face to face contact with the people I work with? Of course. Would I like to go back to a 9-5 office job? Not a chance.

Believe it or not, I’ve only met 4 of the people I work with and I had just met 2 of them a couple of weeks ago at Blog World. Next week most of the company will be getting together in Breckenridge, CO for a week long offsite. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and putting a face to the online personalities I’ve come to know.

I came out to Toronto this weekend to attend my first WordCamp and had a great time. Interacting with people who share the same enthusiasm and passion for WordPress makes work more rewarding.

My life has had some exciting changes in the last 6 months with the new job. I’m looking forward to what the next 6 months bring.

From SVSU to Automattic

Nick Momrik26 Comments

I started attending Saginaw Valley State University in 1998. A year and a half later, I got a job in the IT Services Support Center as a Student Technician. In 2002 I was hired as a Help Desk Analyst and graduated with my Bachelor’s a few months later. A little over a year ago I took a job as Microlab Technology Specialist. After nearly 10 years, Wednesday was my last day working for SVSU.

During my time with the school, I made a lot of friends and gained great experience. I’m sad to leave the people and a place that has been good for me, but I’m happy to be moving onto something new.

For the past 6 weeks, whenever I wasn’t at SVSU, I was working for Automattic. Thursday was my first day as Happiness Engineer for the company. My main focus is to provide support for WordPress.com but I also get my hands a little dirty with WordPress and other things. Automattic is a young company with a bright future. I’m thrilled to join a very talented team.

How did this come about?

Late in 2003 I was looking for some software to run a blog. I landed at Photo Matt and liked the way the site was setup, so I shot Matt an email. He suggested I give WordPress a try and I’ve been using it ever since. Over the years, I’ve contacted Matt a few times and earlier this year at the MacWorld WordPress meetup I had a chance to meet him in person. A week later I was browsing around the Automattic web site and noticed some jobs openings, so I applied. Now here I am…it’s my job to work with WordPress. Somebody pinch me!