Welcome to Automattic Women—conversations with some of the remarkable women working all over the world to design and develop Automattic software and make the web a better place. Today’s interviewee, community steward Josepha Haden Chomphosy, chats with us from her home workstation in California.
Who are you, and what do you do?
Within Automattic, I lead our open source practice which means my work is a bit of tactics, a lot of strategy, and full-time leadership training and support. Outside of Automattic, I lead the WordPress open source project and that work is a lot of short-term coordination of projects and long-term planning for WordPress’s success.
What’s a typical day like for you?
My days typically start out with Zoom meetings (and lots of coffee) so that I can get as much work unblocked for folks as possible. My afternoons tend to mostly be “desk time,” where I focus on text-based work, especially in the WordPress project and community itself—posts, goals, budgets, decisions—all the back-office things that make the world go ‘round.
What drew you to Automattic and what keeps you here?
I was originally drawn to Automattic because working as a sponsored contributor in the WordPress project was a dream come true. I had the chance to take the life-changing experience of discovering WordPress and learning to work with it, and offer that knowledge to others. What keeps me here is naturally the people that I’ve been so privileged to work with over the years, but also the fact that I routinely get to empower others through work that I find meaningful and a CMS that I have used for more than a decade.
What’s your favorite guilty pleasure?
I don’t know how guilty it is, but I spend a lot of time trying to recreate favorite foods from restaurants I’ve been to during my travels. From “best salad” to “best oatmeal,” I’ve tried and failed infinite times on my way to success. But isn’t that the best part of cooking anyway? Taking a bunch of things that are good on their own and combining them until they’re something wholly new and perfect in a totally different way?
That’s it for this edition of Automattic Women. Follow Developer Resources and Automattic Design to meet more wonderful women of Automattic. And if you’d like to do more than just read about these great folks, consider working with us!
