Happiness Engineer

This weekend I went to WordCamp here in  Montreal.  I didn’t go to both days because Saturday was Ben’s birthday.

It had occurred to me, when I first heard about this gathering of the wordpress community, to see if I could  sneak off in the afternoon.  But then, over at SkillCrush, I read these wise words  from an experienced lady programmer: nothing is ever important enough to miss your child’s birthday.

We had a great day on Saturday, hanging out, playing Little Big Planet and video game shopping. Sunday morning when I headed off to WordCamp, bright and early, I was brimming with healthy ambition.  When  I saw the number of people struggling through hangovers from the Saturday night social, I had no regrets.

Hangovers notwithstanding, the energy at WordPress camp is so warm and nurturing and fun, I vow to make this a yearly ritual. And hopefully next year it won’t conflict with another one.
In the  morning I went to the developer presentations:

• Responsive Design (how to design your web pages so that they fit mobile devices, as well as desktops).  Lots of technical stuff that I mostly understood and will probably better understand next year. The takeaway: code semantically. i.e. start learning now how to design webpages that are low on marginalia. 100% column widths. Sliding panels. etc.
• Theme Building. This was my favorite, even though I have zero intention of ever becoming a Word Press theme builder. But Kirk Wight is such an entertaining speaker, I might actually consider it. Either way I was  proud to be one of the people in audience who knew how to write a function.  I feel my work this year has been vindicated. Keep an eye out for Kirk’s presentation on WordCamp TV
• Child Themes. You don’t actually have to know much CSS to build really cool websites.  There’s basically a separate console that allows you to write just a little CSS and dramatically tweak the core code.  The CSS for the child theme will always override the CSS for the parent theme (not unlike life.)  The takeaway: don’t ever touch the core code!  Use the separate console for child CSS. This could be a really cool project for kids, learning just enough CSS to mash their own cool website designs  from available themes.

At lunch I had a great chat with the developer who has adapted Word Press for Post Media, one of the largest media conglomerates in Canada (National Post, Montreal Gazette). One of the things he pointed out is how little  envy there seemed to be at WordPress camps. Unlike other conferences where  networking always has a kind of edge, there’s so much work these days for developers, the vibe is open and generous.

In the afternoon I went to presentations that were a little more local, content oriented, and French, so I won’t summarize them here.  But at the end of the day I was so impressed with the whole WordPress organization that I found myself  trawling through their job postings.

The one that caught my eye,  Happiness Engineer. What an awesome job title.  If I understand the job correctly, it’s enlightened customer support.  Requirements are good writing skills, a working knowledge of HTML/CSS, and compassion for people grappling with information technology.

Maybe I’ll apply. But in the meantime, I have my own little startup here at familycoding, and the job of Happiness Engineer has just been filled.