Update: There’s now a post on my new blog that describes how I became a Happiness Engineer at Automattic.
Hi there! Today I’m incredibly excited to announce the new journey in my career: Happiness Engineer at Automattic. If you didn’t notice already, Automattic is the super awesome company behind WordPress.com, Gravatar (the image service that shows your profile picture every time you comment), PollDaddy, Akismet, Jetpack, VaultPress, and a whole bunch of amazing stuff that you interact with online.
My job will be focused on WordPress.com, a hosted blogging platform by Automattic. You already know a lot about WordPress.com if you’re already a blogger here, and if you didn’t, you might want to know that every month, over 409 million people visit various sites hosted on WordPress.com, making us serve over 18 billion page views. There are about 56.1 million new posts published by users on WordPress.com every month, generating over 68 million new comments every month. (More stats)
The sites hosted on WordPress.com range from private, personal blogs, business blogs, small publishers, artist portfolio, etc to top-tier publications such as Time Magazine, The New York Times blogs, TechCrunch, Re/code, TED, New York Post, CNN Newsroom blog, Quarts, and a lot more.
I start my official work day next week. I’m super excited to join Automattic. I also happen to be the first person to join Automattic from Bangladesh. 🙂
Now that the exciting news has been announced, let’s take a deeper look into what I’ve been doing and what I’ll be doing in the coming days.
WordPress and Me
I started using WordPress in early 2008. In 2006, I started blogging in a Bangla language blogging platform, but I decided to also blog in English in order to reach a global audience. WordPress.com happened to be the best platform to do just that without having literally any technical know-how (I was a school-goer back then and had little technical knowledge).

Since then, I’ve been with WordPress.com. My primary blog, this one you are on right now, is that blog created in 2008. I have created many more self-hosted WordPress sites on my own servers. I currently have numerous self-hosted sites. But despite the freedom that I get from self-hosted WordPress, I’ve always preferred WordPress.com for mere writing, interacting with like-minded bloggers (thanks to Global Tags), and basically get a taste of new WordPress features before they are released for the self-hosted version.
During this time, I’ve met many people who wanted to blog and didn’t know where to start. I’d usually recommend them to WordPress.com because of how easy it is to use and how amazing features are available at absolutely no cost (you can get premium features at a subscription if you need to, though). I still recommend people to use WordPress.com if they want to write, create an audience, interact with like-minded people, or maybe even make some money along the way!
What I’ll Do

My official job title is Happiness Engineer. Frankly, this is a very broad title as Happiness Engineers do various kinds of things with a central goal in mind: engineer happiness for the user. A lot of Automatticians have the job title “Happiness Engineer”, and while you may not immediately realize what their primary work is, you can be sure that they want to make you — the user — happy. 🙂
As per the general requirement of getting into Automattic, I had to do a few weeks of trial project. Basically, in trial, I was supposed to do the same things I would be doing if hired full time. The trial exposed me to alll the awesome tools that keep WordPress.com and other Automattic products up and running. I’ve tried my best and was lucky enough to be offered a full time position.
I know a lot of people who want to work at Automattic have curiosity about the trial period. I’ll probably write a detailed post on my experience during the trial and what to expect if you’re accepted for a trial project. But for now, I’ll just express my excitement to finally have joined Automattic, which means I’ll now be working with the most amazing team on the planet, and spend all my time on WordPress.com, which I love and love (I figured I might put that twice to show emphasis 😛 ).
One of the cool things about working at Automattic is — you don’t have to commute. Automattic is a distributed company, which basically means it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re wearing as long as your internet and computer is working. Automatticians do travel a lot to meet team members to discuss ideas and other stuff, because the usefulness of face-to-face meetup can’t be understated. But for the most part, my room is my work station. How awesome is that!
What Happens to This Blog
Didn’t I say that my full work will be around WordPress.com? 😀 So yeah, this blog isn’t going anywhere. You’ll probably see me writing short posts on a more regular basis. My posts from now on will continue to have my experience at a 100% distributed company, tips on working from home, as well as the regular review/opinion piece on ongoing technology and current affairs. Oh and some photography will pop up here as well. 🙂
So that’s it for today! Here’s to the next level of awesomeness with Automattic!
Great, congrats .You might also give us some tips how we might get jobs at Automatic, I have tried before but didn’t succeed.
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Thanks! There may be several reason behind trying but not succeeding. I’ll try to post my experience someday.
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Please Post …waiting for it..it will be great if you could
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Congrats Bro. We’re proud of you. Don’t forget about the treat 😛
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I shall not forget that. 😛
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Hey, congrats! Happiness Engineer sounds cool! 🙂
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Thanks! It is indeed one of the coolest roles in the world. 😀
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Congratulations!
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Thanks!
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yay!!!! (and what a great job title!) so how are you going to make us happy? hmmmm? 🙂
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It is indeed a great job title! 😀 I’m going to make you guys happy whenever you need help with WordPress.com and email/contact WordPress.com support. I, or any of the other Happiness Engineers from the team, will get back and answer your question or resolve your issue. 🙂
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i have had happiness peeps at wordpress make me very happy and help me with hard problems, it’s a good team you join!
also they are why i stay with wordpress.com instead of going back to .org…. try and get us more themes to choose from kay?
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Sure! 🙂
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Congrats Animul. You made it!
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Thanks!
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Congrats!! That sounds cool!!
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Thanks!!
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Well done my friend!! I came across your profile from an Automattic employee based in the UK. I hope it all goes well for you.
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Thanks! 🙂
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Congrats. =) Did you hear about a vacancy in this position and apply?
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Thanks! Yes that’s pretty much it.
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Congratulation!
আমি খুবই খুশি হলাম, আপনি Automattic এ যুক্ত হয়েছেন।
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Congratulations 🙂
Being first expert from Bangladesh is an achievement 🙂
I wish you very best!
Love and light ❤
Anand 🙂
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Thank you! 🙂
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Welcome 🙂
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