Announcing WP Engine’s New WordPress Contributor Days

In alignment with our core value,  “Committed to Give Back,” WP Engine held its first internal WordPress Contributor Day on July 22, 2022. 

Launched as a pilot event, the day-long contributor sprint provided dedicated time and space for our employees to contribute to WordPress core—with the hope that it would chart a course for similar events in the future.

And chart a course it did. The pilot event was an overwhelming success (see below for specific contributor metrics) and based on the enthusiasm and activity it generated, we’re excited to announce our next WordPress Contributor Day on Friday, August 26, 2022!

While our Contributor Day events are currently organized for WP Engine employees, we are exploring options for expanding them to include our customers, agency partners, and anyone interested in making meaningful contributions to WordPress core. 

Why did we launch this initiative? As WordPress continues to grow and serves as the foundation for our business, we maintain these beliefs:

• We believe that great leaders give back and inspire others to do the same. 
• We empower our teams to lead and participate meaningfully in their own communities, changing lives, growing, and thriving together.
• We advance the WordPress Community through original contribution, sharing expertise, and active participation.

The Contributor Day was led by Nick Diego, a Developer Advocate at WP Engine and WordPress 6.0 and 6.1 Release Team member. Nick has led the charge for our ongoing commitment to Five for the Future.

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Contributor Day Metrics

• 14 employees participated in Contributor Day, 13 from Product & Engineering, and one from CX Ops.
• 57.5 hours were contributed to WordPress.
• Participating employees each spent an average of 4.11 hours contributing.
• Contributions were primarily made to the Core (includes Gutenberg) and Docs teams.
• 4 Gutenberg issues were created.
• 6 Gutenberg PRs were created, and 2 were merged at the time of writing.
• 4 Documentation Issues were completed at the time of writing.
• 1 WordPress Trac ticket was created.

As noted above, the success of the pilot event has already led to a second Contributor Day, scheduled for Friday, August 26, 2022. Stay tuned for updates surrounding that event, including a new tally of contributions to WordPress core and a detailed look at a few of the projects we’re contributing to. 

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Visit WP Engine to find out more about our contributions to WordPress and our industry-leading WordPress platform.

To find out more about working at WP Engine, check out our careers site where you’ll find information about the roles we’re hiring for across all of our global teams!