The Power Of Women In WordPress

I would like to share a glimpse of my experience from this tiny but adventurous journey. I would start with the culture of the city I was born in “Lake city Udaipur” located in the state of Rajasthan. It’s a beautiful city with a sparkling culture but also a bit of rigidness about girls’ education. But unlike the societal mentally my parents were the biggest supporters for my education and not only the schooling but till the graduation. With their support and encouragement I completed my graduation in Computer Science Engineering

After completing my graduation I was able to secure employment at Bosch.

But later on I ended my journey at Bosch and joined the Ideabox as a QA in my home town Udaipur.

How I started my WordPress Journey

I started my career/journey with WordPress back in the year 2015. During the time of my graduation I came to know about WordPress but didn’t have much information about the operations of it but I was excited to learn new technology and luckily a couple of years later I got a chance to work as WordPress Quality Analyst. And my Journey with WordPress began with it.

When I started working as a Quality Analyst I was able to explore WordPress and take a deep dive into it. From that moment, I decided to make it an integral part of my ever learning professional career.

WordPress is not just a tool that can be used to simplify website building, but also a platform where you can meet new people, share your thoughts, learn from them and improve yourself through the process.

When I first started out, I had many questions in mind, some really basic ones too, like.

What are Themes & Plugins ?

Who developed WordPress ?

What is WordCamp ?

It’s the same time where I thought maybe I’ll contribute to WordPress one day.

Becoming A Contributor

I started contributing to WordPress in 2015 with Theme Review. Where I got a chance to work with WordPress code experts and at the same time I learned concepts of theme development. It was a great opportunity for me to learn and improve my development skills. As I was very much interested in testing from the beginning, I did the same in WordPress and contributed to Core.

My first contribution was in WordPress 4.7 and I remember the day when I first saw my name in the WordPress contributor list. This thing encourages me to make more contributions towards WordPress. I continued my contribution in all WordPress core updates and am happy to be a part of the community.

Then I thought of translating WordPress in my native language Hindi. From there, I started contributing to Translation and became GTE (General Translation Editor) of the Hindi project.

Then we organized WordCamp Udaipur 2017, and it helped me to connect to new people, and I got to know many people already working on WordPress. This was my first WordCamp, and the experience was superb. It gave me a chance to share my WordPress contribution journey with all members and I participated as a Panelist. It was a great moment for me when I was speaking in front of hundreds of people and everyone cherished my journey. It inspired me to continue my contribution to another team like Meta, Support WordPress TV.

I was very crazy to get new badges on my profile and these things redirect me in all directions.

Big Changes

In 2019 my life revamped when I got married and with the support and guidance of my life partner, I took a new step in my life and joined Brainstorm Force. where I got a chance to work on WordPress top most product and learned many things from designing to marketing.

In November 2019 Josepha Haden sent out a call for an all-women release squad. I’ve always felt that not enough women take part in WordPress, so I decided to jump in.

We talked, and I got on board as the Test Lead. It’s been a wonderful journey— worth every second and this was a proud moment for me when I saw my name on the WordPress Noteworthy list . You feel proud when you see your small contributions used by 40% of the web.

As a test lead, my first priority was to ensure that the release would be stable and more importantly, ready for production sites. To effectively manage all the testing, we decided to run test scrubs every week, and talk about the testing areas to get the entire team involved.

We initiated the first test scrub on 29th September and we got a great response from everyone. So, we continued to run the scrub every week and also picked up tickets that needed an immediate resolution.

I continued my role in WordPress 5.7 as well. This was the moment where I met with new people and got a chance to look into WordPress core release.

This is how I improved my skills and got the chance to work on the core release of WordPress 5.6 & WordPress 5.7.

Skills you have with yourself will eventually fade away unless and until you start working on them and sharpen it. so don’t underestimate the value of any skill. It will eventually help you somehow in your career.

“Believe in Yourself and achieve Success.”

To get something new you have to stop doing something old, and I got the chance to work on WordPress top product MemberPress. In October 2021, I joined Caseproof LLC, a company that specializes in producing WordPress plugins and services for online businesses.

It’s not difficult to manage personal & Professional life if you have dedication towards the work and I am really enjoying my work with personal life.

What’s next ?

There is no chance that I’ll stop working with WordPress. I would love to continue working with the community and help more people get involved in WordPress. It is true that many people are working on WordPress, but they don’t know much about contribution. Therefore, my future goal is to help people (especially women) contribute more to WordPress and take this platform on a large scale. I’ll try to be a part of more local and International WordCamp & Meetups.

So get involved with WordPress and you will eventually evolve.

Thank you Topher and HeroPress team for giving me a chance to share my experience.