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.
