Tag: Development

I came to coding through the back door, driven by curiosity rather than computer science degrees. These posts document my journey from complete beginner to someone who gets to work on software used by millions. They’re for anyone who thinks they’re not ‘technical enough’—spoiler alert: you probably are.

  • Is Your Bread Recipe an Algorithm?

    Is Your Bread Recipe an Algorithm?

    Tomorrow I start Joe Hudson’s Connection course. This week, I’ve started reading Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Tiny Experiments. Each evening, I’m working with apps to sharpen my algorithmic thinking. Somehow these three seemingly separate things feel deeply connected – the science of small experiments, the art of human connection, the systematic way of approaching the world with curiosity.

    All mindset stuff, really. How to approach the world with wonder and curiosity.

    This got me thinking about a conversation I had recently with someone who’d just graduated high school. They wanted to become a developer but were struggling with the maths in their computer science degree. “I’m just not a maths person,” they said, with that familiar resignation I recognised in myself not so long ago.

    But what I’ve come to realise is that the maths isn’t separate from the thinking. It’s all one integrated way of approaching problems with curiosity and systematic experimentation.

    I used to think I was no good at maths. There’s this huge global preconception that maths is hard, or worse, boring. I also used to think all the sciences had their own containers and domains. Engineering over here, computer science over there, biology somewhere else entirely.

    But algorithms are everywhere.

    When you’re developing a bread recipe, testing different hydration levels and fermentation times, noting which combinations create the perfect crumb – that’s scientific method. That’s data collection. That’s algorithmic thinking. Cooking, especially baking, is all about chemistry, but we don’t typically call bakers chemists.

    When you’re planning which plants to grow together in your garden, observing which companions thrive and which compete, adjusting based on soil conditions and seasonal patterns – that’s A/B testing. That’s experimental design. That’s pattern recognition.

    I’m currently really enjoying Algorithms to Live By, and there’s this bit about apartment hunting. The book explains that harried renters need the 37% rule: spend 37% of your search time exploring options without committing, then immediately commit to the first place that beats whatever you’ve already seen. It’s not just intuitive compromise between looking and leaping – it’s the provably optimal solution to what computer scientists call “optimal stopping” problems.

    Once I started looking, I could see it everywhere. The explore/exploit trade-off that helps me balance trying new things with enjoying my favourites. Sorting theory for organising my desk. Caching theory for arranging my wardrobe. Scheduling theory for managing my time. Brian Griffiths makes some excellent points, algorithms really are everywhere.

    This made me wonder about engineering as a science. I’ve always thought of it as one, but why is it a whole separate department at universities? Why do we compartmentalise education into these distinct subjects when the underlying thinking is all connected?

    Some European school systems already get this. The Danish system integrates various aspects of science across different subjects rather than separating them into distinct disciplines. Programs like Cambridge IGCSE offer Combined Science qualifications where students study biology, chemistry, and physics as one interconnected course. At the university level, interdisciplinary Bachelor’s programs provide broad education that integrates multiple core scientific disciplines.

    There’s an urge to recombine, to see the patterns.

    Following scientific method – even loosely, even personally – leads to better understanding of everything. Using analytics and data to drive decisions creates better products, tools, more efficient use of time. When we debug code, we’re hypothesising about what might be wrong, testing our theories, collecting evidence. When we iterate on user interfaces, we’re running experiments and measuring outcomes.

    It’s all the same thing in different forms.

    Everything is connected, and once your mind starts thinking in this way, it’s the same underlying pattern recognition showing up across every domain. The wonder of discovering how interconnected everything really is has changed how I approach technical problems, as well as how I mentor others.

    When someone tells me they’re “not a maths person,” I can say with confidence: “Actually, you might already have these thinking skills – let me show you where.” Because they’re probably already experimenting in their kitchen, optimising their commute, troubleshooting why their plants aren’t thriving, finding patterns in their work that help them make better decisions.

    That’s scientific thinking. That’s algorithmic reasoning. That’s the same cognitive toolkit that powers everything from machine learning to sourdough starters.

    So here’s what I’m wondering.. what other “separate” skills are actually expressions of this same underlying pattern recognition? Where are we all already collecting data and running experiments in our daily life without realising it?

    Maybe it’s time we stopped teaching subjects in isolation and started teaching the thinking that connects them all – the curiosity, the systematic experimentation, the willingness to test assumptions and adjust based on evidence.

    Because the truth is, we’re all scientists. We’re all running tiny experiments, all the time. We just don’t always recognise the algorithm behind the wonder.

  • The Journey to WordPress: A Legacy of Love and Code

    A storm, a lightning strike, an earthquake, and a dying father’s prophecy (yes, really!). This is the story of how grief, adventure, and a bit of fate carried me from a nomadic life to a role at Automattic, where I’ve spent almost eight years helping build and contribute to WordPress (and WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce and other Automattic products). Now, as Automattic celebrates its 20th birthday, I’ve been reflecting on that wild, beautiful path; and how it all somehow led me exactly where I was meant to be.

    I’m a little late to the party writing this reflection on Automattic’s 20th anniversary. Not because I forgot, or because I don’t care, but because I’ve been sitting with how to piece together a story that feels both impossible and inevitable at the same time.

    Almost eight years ago now, I was standing soaked to the bone in a hotel room in Oaxaca, Mexico, hanging wet clothes everywhere after lightning had literally struck in front of us during a massive storm. Hours later, an 8+ magnitude earthquake would shake the city. The next morning, I’d stuff my suitcase with damp, gross laundry and board the first of two overnight flights to Whistler, Canada, to start a job I was still convinced was too good to be true.

    But let me back up.

    The Prophecy

    My father was a computing lecturer who did some contract software development on the side. He was the kind of dad who taught his daughter QBasic in the early 90s, when most kids didn’t even have home computers, let alone girls learning to code. We did logic puzzles together. He loaned me programming books as I grew up. We talked about code the way other families talked about sports.

    I learned PHP in my teens and had hobby projects scattered everywhere, including local bbPress installs and eventually WordPress once it became a thing. (Fun fact: WordPress’s birthday, May 27th, is also my birthday – just a different year. Some signs are more obvious than others.)

    But life took me in different directions. I became a chef, tried medical school, worked as a bartender, became a flight attendant. For years, I nomaded around the world, freelancing – writing, attempting graphic design (definitely not my thing!), building WordPress sites, and fixing WordPress problems. My dad had always thought I’d come back to computing eventually.

    During the early days of those nomadic years, my father got cancer. I thought we had five years together, so I returned to New Zealand to spend whatever time he had left with him. Dad connected me with people who needed WordPress consulting work – fixing plugins, designing custom themes, the whole spectrum. He was building a bridge for me back to the world he’d always believed I belonged in.

    Dad didn’t live five years. He didn’t even live two months past when I got back. Devastating for me.

    Near the end, I told him maybe I should settle down and get a proper job. “How about a travel agent?” I suggested. “I’ve seen the world, my geography is excellent, I was a flight attendant – I know airports and airlines.”

    He looked at me and said no, I would be so bored in an office. I would hate it. Don’t give up, he told me. He thought my future was WordPress. Not development, not computers, not even PHP specifically. WordPress. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling.

    The Journey

    After Dad died, I had enough inheritance not to work for a while. Once we sorted his affairs, I set off across Asia by train – honoring his two greatest passions: trains and Asian travel. I started in Singapore and wound through Malaysia, Thailand, China, and Mongolia, then flew to Albania and traveled up through the Balkans to France. I blogged about the journey. Sometimes I wondered what I might do next, but there was no pressure. The money was holding out, and I was processing grief in motion.

    Then, in some Facebook freelancers group, a job posting appeared.

    It wasn’t just any job. It was THE WordPress job. At Automattic. The company behind WordPress.com, the very platform that had been part of my life for years. And the requirements? Customer support, but technical. People person, but code. WordPress experience. Remote work welcome.

    It felt like a message from Dad.

    The Impossible Interview

    I applied, terrified and convinced it was too good to be true. Imposter syndrome was screaming in my ears, but in hindsight, I was such a perfect fit.

    The entire interview process was conducted via text – no voice or video calls. I was impressed by this intentional approach to avoid bias based on how someone looks or speaks. Then came the trial: a month-long process that started with over 50 people and worked like Survivor, with eliminations each week until around 20 of us got hired.

    The Grand Entrance

    In 2017, Automattic’s Grand Meetup was in Whistler, Canada. It also happened to be my first day of work. And it came exactly one week after I had moved to Mexico.

    The timing was absurd. I’d been in Oaxaca City less than a week. At Cancun airport, I’d gotten scammed by the taxi mafia (that’s a whole other blog post). I frantically searched for a six-month rental while staying in a hotel, finally found the perfect place, and signed the lease. As I left the apartment, that massive storm broke. Lightning struck directly in front of me. Water rushed rapids down the roads waist-high. I reached the hotel completely soaked.

    That night: the earthquake. Coming from Christchurch, which had its own devastating earthquake, I had serious PTSD. The ground shaking in a foreign country, in a job that still felt like a dream, pushed every anxiety button I had.

    The next morning, I stuffed wet laundry into my suitcase and began the long journey to Canada to start a job I was still half-convinced was fake.

    All new hires had to give a flash talk at the Grand Meetup. I wrote mine on the plane, about the incredible journey that had brought me there – including the overland Asia trip after Dad’s death, the inheritance that gave me freedom, the Facebook post that felt like destiny. It’s been almost eight years since that day, and I can still feel the electricity of that moment.

    In fact, with a little light digging, I was even able to find the recording of that very talk:

    The Work

    I started as a WordPress.com Happiness Engineer, which sounds like typical customer support but is so much more. It’s technical support with real responsibility – working in GitHub, debugging, writing CSS and JavaScript. In 2021, I transitioned to Code Wrangler, where I’ve been ever since.

    The nomadic lifestyle continued for years. I worked from a jungle house in Costa Rica, poolside in Nicaragua, all over Mexico from coast to coast and mountains in between, Portugal, back home in New Zealand during COVID. Forty-two countries in total, many of them while at Automattic.

    Since meeting my Mexican partner and having a baby born in Mexico, we’ve settled in Australia where I bought a house and work from my home office. But those years of nomading while building code that powers WordPress sites around the world? That was living the dream in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

    The Circle

    Now I contribute directly to the ecosystem of a product that has been important to me for so long. When I attend events and tell people I work for Automattic, that I write code that helps power WordPress, I feel a pride that connects back to those early days learning QBasic with my dad.

    He would be so proud. I’m absolutely sure of it.

    There’s something beautiful about working for a company that believes in the democratisation of publishing, in giving everyone a voice on the web. Dad believed in me when not many girls were learning to code. Automattic believes in potential in all its forms – remote workers, nomads, people with unconventional paths.

    Twenty Years

    Happy 20th birthday to Automattic. Thank you for building something that honors the web as a place where everyone belongs. Thank you for taking a chance on a nomadic WordPress consultant who saw a job posting that felt like a message from beyond. Thank you for almost eight years of growth, adventure, challenge, and the deep satisfaction of contributing to something bigger than myself.

    And Dad? You were right. My future was WordPress. I just had to trust the signs along the way.