When I was interviewing for the Happiness Engineer job at Automattic (almost a year ago!), the trial lead (the full-timer conducting my interview) asked why I wanted to work in the Happiness Engineer role. With my background in personal training and a short stint in online advertising, it wasn’t the most natural fit.
In response, I kept touching on a particular “feeling” that I had had when all the pieces of my original website fell into place. At that point, I had setup my own self-hosted WordPress install and learned just enough of CSS to be dangerous. While I frequently brought down my own site and had to call in reinforcements to help bring it back up, there was this moment where it was perfect. I had the right widgets, the perfect design, and the ideal canvas for my thoughts and ideas. Best of all, I had built it.
I recently had a similar feeling again during our yearly Grand Meetup. For three days, I sat in on a Javascript learn-up and tried to soak up as much knowledge as possible. I’m not a Javascript whiz just yet, but I was able to watch as our team created a Chrome Extension that allows you to highlight text and automatically created a new link post (similar to this).
Just like when I first was able to get my website up and running, the short sneak peak into Javascript built excitement. For the first time, I saw what was possible and had some basic knowledge to start building something on my own.
That’s the exact same feeling that draws me to helping other bloggers and writers at WordPress.com. People from all over come to WordPress.com with an idea or a message to share. As they get started, they may encounter roadblocks that leave them feeling frustrated. My goal is to remove those roadblocks and show them a glimpse of what is possible.
Through my work, I hope to recreate that feeling inside of users and get them excited about whatever they’re doing. I want them to have the perfect canvas for their ideas and the empowering feeling that comes with creating something on their own. It’s a feeling I believe everyone should experience in some form, and one that I hope to never lose myself.