I should probably tell you at the outset...

Until a couple of weeks ago, I was not looking for a new job.

I have a pretty good gig with people I enjoy at a major telecommunications company using an excellent tech stack. But you know that thing when you are on the internet, and one click leads to another? One minute you are trying to pay your gas bill, and somehow twenty minutes later you are researching how to hike the Camino de Santiago? That's what happened to me a couple of weeks ago, when I randomly saw a post about Automattic while scrolling on LinkedIn. Something about that post jumped out at me, and I have learned to pay attention to my gut. Next thing I know, I am listening to "The Year without Pants" on Audible, designing a new WordPress blog for myself, scanning Automattic's job postings, and sliding into the Twitter DMs of the only Automattician in my home city. (Thanks for your advice, Ryan Markel!)

I can be very enthusiastic when something grabs hold of me.

The more I learned about the culture at Automattic, the more I eagerly wanted to be a part of it! Working remotely? YES, that would be absolutely amazing, particularly as a parent. The travel? HECK YES, I want to travel to new and exciting places! But those perks are not really the heart of the matter for me. What I've gleaned about Automattic that I deeply respect and want to be a part of is:

• You trust and respect your employees.
• You keep things simple and eschew anything that complicates or blocks greatness.
• A great deal of the internet has been overcast by fear and toxic communication; Automattic provides a platform for the best of what the internet can be.

While there is much about my current job that is fantastic...it is rather conventional. As I was pondering whether or not to throw my hat in the ring for this position, I realized that I need not settle for the conventional. Why start now?! I have never been one to stick to the conventional. My adult "career" started with two years in a Carmelite monastery, giving the whole simplicity and meditation thing a try. From there my job titles and roles have included camp counselor, environmental advocate, doula (aka childbirth assistant), blogger, independent sales consultant, insurance customer service representative, and finally software developer. (Also, throw wife and mom in there.) It's been a wild ride.

The three through-lines of my life have been love of people, love of technology, and love of words. The job of a Happiness Engineer at Automattic brings all three of them together in a way that is just so perfect.

The Elephant in the Room

I feel as though a couple of things need to be addressed in order for my application to this position to make any kind of sense.

First, what makes me think that as a novice WordPress user I would be ready and able to be a Happiness Engineer?

• I have tremendous confidence in my ability to learn and assimilate large amounts of information in a relatively short amount of time. In just 9 months I went from knowing zero JavaScript to landing a job and having a fantastic first year as a React developer for the telecommunications company Spectrum. I have no doubt that I will rapidly become adept at all the ins and outs of WordPress, and I have faith in my research and question-asking abilities in the meantime.
• I know customer service. My communication skills are excellent. I know how to diffuse an emotionally charged situation and quickly pivot to a solution. I prefer simple solutions over clever and new, but more complex. I am comfortable with assisting people of varying ages and backgrounds, including those for whom English is not their primary language. I can communicate casually and professionally with equal effectiveness, and I am perceptive enough to know which is called for in a given situation. Very few things in this life give me a greater sense of satisfaction than helping, teaching, mentoring, and empowering other people.
• The internet is home to me. I've been fluent in HTML and CSS for 20 years. I've spent countless hours and days of my life on message boards, in chat, on social media, and in the world of blogging. I am familiar with and native to the particularities of communicating primarily via these channels. I can have entire conversations that consist of only memes and gifs. I feel like my entire life has prepared me to be ready to work in exactly this sort of role for this sort of company.

Secondly, why am I not applying for the JavaScript Engineer position?
I strongly considered doing so, as I do love programming in JavaScript. It seems the obvious next step for my career. However, having just shy of 18 months of experience under my belt, I feel that my expertise is not yet at the level that I presume Automattic is expecting. Whereas I feel that my soft skills and past customer service experience combined with my tech knowledge make me a ready fit for a Happiness Engineer right now. It is true that I am currently thriving in my position as a React developer. So perhaps I am selling myself short. If I am underestimating Automattic's willingness to mentor junior-level developers, then by all means, I am willing to be considered for that job! (And I can tell you the secret I received when making the GET request per the instructions in the JavaScript Engineer job listing.)

And now, because there are few things that I love more than checking items off lists:

1. Tell us about any books, blog posts, or articles you’ve read about customer service and what you thought of them. While customer service is not something I have admittedly done a lot of reading on specifically, I have read Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh. I found it to be insightful in such a way that with every point he made, I found myself thinking, “of course this is true! It’s obvious!" Finding your passion, remaining focused on what you are good at, treating your employees right…and most importantly, focusing on the happiness of your customers…of course these things lead to success. And yet, if his conclusions are so obvious, why do they seem to elude so many businesses? Secondly, I had to hunt it down with Google, but I recently came across this article about the reasons that Costco gets such high marks in customer service. Again, their approach makes so much sense – and there seems to be a good deal of overlap between what Costco does right, what Hsieh recommends, and what Automattic stands for.


2. Have you been part of an amazing customer support experience? Tell us what made it memorable. The best customer service I’ve been the recipient of in recent memory was from T-Mobile, my mobile phone service provider. Without going into the nitty gritty of our situation, over the span of a couple of weeks, I engaged with customer service representatives, both by chat and by phone, first to upgrade our data plan and then to revert it back to our previous plan when it turned out the new plan did not serve our needs. Throughout the whole experience, every agent I spoke with was genuinely friendly and amiable, and seemed to be enjoying themselves. They answered all of my questions with clarity and patience. And when we wanted to go back to our old, less expensive plan (which was technically no longer offered by the company), our request was honored with zero pushback. Since those experiences, I have been singing T-Mobile’s praises, and would be hard pressed to be enticed away from their service.
   
   If you are interested in hearing about customer service that I provided, I am happy to tell you stories from my time as a doula, as a independent sales consultant, and as an insurance CSR!


3. Read the Automattic creed. What does the first sentence mean to you? I am not kidding or exaggerating when I say that “Never Stop Learning” is my raison d'etre. Curiosity has been my default posture since I was a child. I loved school; at university, I was a double-major and a double-minor because I wanted to learn All The Things. By the time graduation rolled around, I’d had my fill of formal education (at least for a while) but I never once considered my life as a student to be complete. I continue to bootstrap my own education on a daily basis through reading, podcasts, documentaries, and whatever resources I can find online. I like to dabble variety of domains of knowledge, until something grabs me. In that case, I’ll deep dive on a topic for days, weeks, even months at a time. Sometimes there are practical or professional benefits to what I learn; my 9 months with LaunchCode produced a successful and lucrative career pivot! Knowledge gained and put to good use for the betterment of individuals and society is the best kind of learning. Yet I am also a fan of speculative pursuits and the pure pleasure of learning. “Knowledge for its own sake” is not a criticism in my book.

👋 Hey, thanks for stopping by!

Before you go, you may want to take a look at my fledgling WordPress blog, amymarie.lol. Or checkout a website I threw together for my husband in a single night before a grant application deadline. That was fun!