Code by Tom

I started working at Automattic in August of 2020. I was previously working remotely for a company based in London on a social media management tool, the company and team were great there and I still talk to many friends I met during my time.

I saw that Automattic were hiring, I knew a tonne about them from my days working in agencies as a WordPress and WooCommerce developer longing for an opportunity to work on on open source software wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Once I saw they were hiring for JavaScript engineers I immediately threw my hat in the ring.

The interview process was long, and thorough but self-paced which took the stress off. It included multiple steps, speaking to Automatticians only via text and working on a 40 hour task with another engineer. But it was worth it.

I’m not here to write about the hiring process, with a quick Google search you can find plenty of blog posts from people documenting their experience with that. I’m here to write about my experience working at Automattic.

Fully distributed team

Automattics workforce is fully distributed, which means we’re spread out pretty much all over the word. In my immediate team of around 15 engineers who are currently focused on working on WooCommerce, I’m the only one based in the UK. The others? Spain, Italy, Bali, US, Vietnam, Brazil, Poland, India and more. Working with them is a joy, they’re all extremely talented, patient and great people. I’ve learned so much during my team in the team.

Because of peoples working hours, and their time zones we don’t always get a full day working together but we always seem to have overlap which helps. I’ve often heard the argument that working remotely in a team (never mind in a team so spread out) means you don’t form those bonds that otherwise would be fostered in an office, but I can tell you from my experience that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Working this way means we have to lean into asynchronously communication. Never expecting an immediate reply. If it’s urgent there’s always someone online to help.

Culture

At a workplace culture can be one of the biggest differences between staying in the job, and leaving it. My experience of culture at Automattic has been really positive. I work with a diverse range of people from different backgrounds, and each and everyone one of them is really talentedand equally polite, personable and respectful. I have learned a tremendous amount working with my colleagues… whether they can say the same about working with me is another matter.

Meet-ups

Working remotely is awesome. Spending time face-to-face with your colleagues is also great. The two go together. Working remotely lets us live and work in a way that fits us as individuals, while face-to-face time helps us build relationships with one another and work on things that are easier to tackle when together. Meetups bridge that gap and are a critical element in making our distributed model work.

Automattic

I think the above quote sums this up perfectly. I’m really fortunate to have been given some amazing travel opportunities which include going to some of the following destinations to catch up and work with my team in person. Bangkok (Thailand), Split (Croatia), Gran Canaria (Spain), Seville (Spain), Athens (Greece), Vienna (Austria) and more.

Benefits

Working at Automattic has some great benefits beyond the remote aspect of working here, and the software we work on but I’m just going to pull out some of the ones I really appreciate:

• Parental leave – After the birth of your child, Automattic generously offers 6 months off fully paid.
• Home office – We will help you get set up at home with the correct equipment that allows you to do your best and most productive work. This includes laptop, monitor, desk, chair, headphones and more.
• Co-working stipend – Working remotely and working from home are two different things. Some colleagues work whilst travelling the world whereas I split my time between coffee shops, co-working spaces and home. For these types of things Automattic has a budget of $250 a month for you (this even includes coffee).
• Unlimited AFK – Yep! Unlimited AFK is a great benefit and it means you have the ability to take a break when you feel like it.
• And more – There are tonnes more benefits at Automattic and some vary depending on location. You can read more about them here.

My typical day

Morning

I typically start work around 8am local time and by this point I’ve made my way to the back room where my desk is (tough commute, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone) and started reading the latest Slack messages, P2s (these are our internal blogs, every team/product/platform has one) and announcements, fuelled by coffee.

I’ll start planning out my day based on priorities such as Github reviews, code feedback or anything urgent that has come in. I typically try and start my day by unblocking other people before focusing on my own tasks.

We use Geekbot as our standup tool so once I know what my day looks like I’ll add them into here and they’ll get posted to my teams Slack channel.

Midday

By midday I’ve caught up and wrapped up some of the more time sensitive tasks that perhaps others were relying on me for. Time to break for lunch where I’ll usually eat something real quick and either go on a run or go to the gym.

Afternoon

In the afternoon if I haven’t already I’ll focus on my own tasks. At the moment I’m working on the Block Hooks API in WordPress so this means diving into the codebase to further the progress on my project. Quite broad I know, but usually this is what it entails:

• Liaising with other engineers or the project lead to work out what the priorities are if I don’t already know so I can focus on them.
• Communicate what I’m going to be working on.
• Open PRs for review and address feedback.
• If there are any particularly tricky issues perhaps I’ll ask for feedback, help or a pairing session

When it comes to working remotely, communicating effectively is especially important if you’re trying to articulate a technical problem or a proposed solution. The last thing you want is to log on the following morning and see that someone has asked what you mean. To avoid this I try to include reproduction steps, scenarios where this might be a problem, links maybe to lines of related code on Github, screenshots and videos where appropriate.

I’ll finish my day by trying to make sure there are no loose ends.