The WordPress project is successful, among other things, because of the number of people working behind it. And although it is logical to think of a lot of developers whose day to day is PHP and JavaScript working remotely and uploading code to a lot of repositories (which also), there are a multitude of teams that are responsible for pushing each one from their specialty.
After my first WordCamp in Santander in 2015 I came away with two contacts that changed my life schemes and probably still do: Rocío Valdivia and Ibon Azkoitia. Both were at the community table during the contributor's day, to which I arrived with a huge hangover, and for some reason that I don't remember or always didn't know, I ended up sitting between them.
I had never organized a party before. Meeting my friends at my own house every Friday and Saturday already seemed like a hassle.
Fast forward to 2023. I am one of the lead organizers of WordCamp Europe, a 3000 people event to be held in Italy; we have four WordCamp Pontevedra behind us and I have mentored events in Madrid, Seville, Lisbon or Brno, as well as helped dozens of meetup organizers from all over the world.
What happened in between? The community team. Rocío and Ibon were part of it and they gave me all the guidelines, advice and answers to the questions that arose for the path that they themselves had pushed me to. Are you going to a new city? There is no WordPress group in Pontevedra or in Galicia? Do it! What? Come on!
It's true that I'm easy to mess with. And there are a lot of other people who are up for a blitz. But creating free or very low-cost events for people of all profiles (personal and professional) to share knowledge, learn, make connections and have a good time is very rewarding. Very much so.
You have to admit that the system is well set up. They help you as much as they can and, when you have enough experience, they tell you... wouldn't you like to be a mentor? And then you go one step further. And before you know it, you're already on the team.
I admit that curiosity kept me falling down the rabbit hole and I had so many questions that I could only answer from within the team globally that I decided to sign up. Speaking a little more English wouldn't hurt, I thought.
And, little by little, I went from mentor to deputy (even though José Luis hated that word), then to super deputy and, now, changing names and roles, to Community Program Manager. There you go.
The global community team is the place where we discuss the rules and principles governing WordPress events, announce all ongoing projects, come up with new ones, and help community members organize their own events.
These can be meetups (local events usually monthly), WordCamps (one or two days of talks and more attendees), contribution days (to learn how to collaborate with the project), online events (to be more accessible to those who can't travel), do_action hackathons (to make websites for non-profit organizations) or new generation events (directly, experiments, whatever you can think of).
The Spanish community is one of the most active -if not the most- worldwide, which allows me to share time and conversations with a lot of fantastic and inspiring people.
If at any time you are curious to know more about the people who organize all these events, you want to take the step and set up something yourself in your town or city or simply want to know how all this is paid for and how the money is managed (something that really caught my attention and that's why I kept falling for the "conversion funnel") do not hesitate a moment to look for me on the WordPress global Slack and ask me there.