It’s a remarkable journey, transitioning from reader to writer, from aspiring Happiness Engineer to a seasoned Automattician. I vividly recall the aspirations and dreams you might also be holding right now—the desire to work for Automattic and to be a part of this incredible company; I knew I could excel, that my life would be enriched and that I would be doing something I deeply understood and loved.

The Beginning:

When I embarked on my journey to become an Automattician, my research was relentless – I was determined to be fully prepared. Despite my 7 years of WordPress experience, I understood the importance of taking the job application and preparation process seriously, knowing that it was crucial for the hiring team to consider me.

Here’s what I did:

• Read previous HE stories. There, I learned how many applications it took HEs before me and what the hiring team advised if they weren’t immediately accepted. For example, volunteering in the WordPress.com forums is strongly encouraged to broaden your knowledge and underst­anding of how to support WordPress users. I browsed the forums obsessively before I applied.
• I revisited the job listing, evaluated the requirements, identified my strengths and weaknesses, and created a plan to improve.
• I visited Glassdoor and browsed all other Automattic-related resources I could get my hands on to keep myself motivated about what I was working towards.

Eventually, after three months of preparation (way too long 😅), I applied, was accepted into the trial, and passed!

Life as an HE

Since then, I’ve gone through several changes, and I would love to share a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a Happiness Engineer at Automattic.

As a new Happiness Engineer, my role was primarily focused on support work for WooCommerce. This included testing for issues reported by users, creating bug reports as needed, providing standard plugin support, and interacting with different teams and vendors in the WooCommerce marketplace. This was my main task for 6 hours of the day, while the remaining 2 hours were dedicated to what we call ‘citizenship tasks. ‘

Citizenship tasks typically include reading internal blog posts that we call P2s, posting weekly updates, working on peer reviews, sharing knowledge with peers, completing a course that will help with your role and more.

As time passed, things slowly began to evolve, and it became evident that this was the goal all along. To become an HE that embodies the Automattic creed.

After about nine months, there was a call for interest post that appealed to me. These posts are exciting and allow HEs to increase their impact and contributions to the company in different ways. This call for interest was for new members for the Customer Feedback Guild. Guilds are small teams composed of HEs who work on projects or tasks that are valuable to the company during their citizenship or other allocated time. My guild focused on taking customer feedback and determining the best way to apply it to improve our products or support experience.

After joining the guild, I started to see and learn something about the Happiness Engineer role that I hadn’t understood initially. Automatic is a breeding ground for fresh ideas and welcomes HEs to actively be involved in the implementation of those ideas. There is also an expectation that HEs will find ways to contribute to existing systems implemented within our support process beyond the actual support itself to keep systems efficient.

What I thought would just be support became an opportunity to delight users in our daily support interactions and contribute to the company’s broader goals.

Since then, I’ve done other things, like joining another guild and training new wranglers for my previous guild role. I engaged in knowledge sharing through P2 posts and have had conversations with different teams to learn more about what they do and how I can help. My current guild’s main focus is helping small and medium businesses grow by understanding their unique goals and challenges and offering solutions. We offer target customers the opportunity to talk with us 1:1. These calls are about understanding the customer and providing the best help, so that they can move forward using WooCommerce.

Onward

Looking forward, I see a world of opportunities, and I hope you share the same optimism when you join as a Happiness Engineer. The potential for growth and contribution is immense, and I implore you to embrace it with open arms.

I encourage you to remain curious and courteous and seek new opportun­ities to contribute.

Who knows, I might one day be working on a team implementing your idea.