I’m excited to announce that I’ve recently taken on a new job working with The Engineered Innovation Group as a Software Architect! This role enables me to continue to work on several goals for myself, and I’m excited about new opportunities for learning and growth.
Similar to my other past jobs, it is 100% remote and also focused on leadership of technology projects and teams. The main difference is a slight shift in focus away from the CMS world to a focus on cloud solutions utilizing emerging technologies, such as AI.
A Shout-out to the WordPress Community
For over a decade, I’ve been focused on the WordPress web content management system (CMS) as a central open source tool for most of my projects. These projects have been rewarding, and involved building many large, high-traffic websites and digital solutions. You may have even unknowingly used one of the projects I was fortunate enough to contribute to or lead.
As a large open source project that has been around for 20+ years, WordPress certainly has its challenges and cobwebs that need cleaning, but with a vibrant, energetic open source community, it is continuing to evolve into the future. Considering it powers over 43% of all websites in existence, it’s a force that shouldn’t be ignored. The work that people in the WordPress community does is pushing the capabilities of websites and creators.
I’ve built meaningful friendships and professional relationships with countless people in this community, and I’m extremely grateful to have been given the opportunity to make an impact to this project. When I was at WordCamp Europe in Athens, Greece last June, I was reminded of how many people in that community have impacted me throughout my time working with WordPress, and I hope to never lose contact, as we progress through our careers.
WordPress’ technology stack is mostly centered around PHP, MySQL, and React, and there are a large number of additional technologies I’ve been exposed to during this time, since WordPress is open source and extremely extensible and able to interface with a number of technologies. Working at an agency for the majority of my past employment, I’ve had exposure to many types of challenges that require innovative solutions pushing the boundaries of technologies.
Lessons in Leadership
My most recent professional goal over the past 7 years or so has been to become well-versed in aspects of leadership. These skills have been beneficial in enabling the engineering teams I’ve worked with to do their best work and launch successful projects. For the past six years, I’ve served in roles of Director of Engineering for a large, prestigious agency, and Head of Open Source Development Teams for the WordPress open source project. I’ve learned a lot about leadership through experience and focused training, from how to support and grow healthy and happy teams, to the nuances of ‘managing up’ to higher-ups. Though I am confident in my skills, I feel there is still much more to learn that would be challenging to do in a management role.
Working as a people/project manager usually left little time to learn emerging technologies unless a project required me to do so. There were simply too many other things to support during the course of a day, and often I found myself wanting a bit of focus time to acquire hands-on experience in technologies.
A New Focus
For me, one of the most rewarding parts of the leadership and technical lead roles has been planning a project from scratch and watching it become a real, usable thing. My new role will allow me to focus on architecting and planning projects more deeply, while getting more hands-on exposure to different and emerging technologies outside of my normal skillset. This role will be similar, yet very different to my previous experiences, and I fully embrace the challenge.
I’m also taking a step away from people management for a bit. There’s a misconception that a career ladder is straight “up”, but there are many books and articles that explain it’s very common to go between management and IC work throughout one’s career. I feel it will be invaluable to have hands-on experience in a diverse set of technologies before stepping back to a people management role someday. I feel that as a software architect, I’ll find new ways to support teams and provide growth to areas I never imagined.
I do plan to return to people management someday (a passion of mine), but temporarily stepping away is sometimes a necessary step. I’m looking forward to this journey, and am excited to help this young, yet accomplished, company continue to grow and reach new heights.