The last time I had a milestone at Automattic, I was too busy on my sabbatical to write about the anniversary, but it’s been a year, and here I am. Six years on February 6th! Wow. And what a year.

I got a new awesome laptop. This usually happens at around four years but I didn’t need a new one then so I waited. It’s ok, it was worth the wait. My old laptops are still in use in the house so they posed for a picture.

You may have read about our special W laptops on other blogs. It’s the coolest thing. It’s a MacBook that’s been recovered with the WordPress logo instead of the Apple logo.

It’s actually a great conversation starter. Recently, I was working in an airport when someone asked me about it. It turns out they work with WordPress, and I was able to encourage them to apply.

Aside from swag, it’s been a year for hiring. After I returned from my sabbatical, we launched a major hiring push to grow our Happiness team. As one of three full-time members of the Happiness Hiring team, I was responsible for devising a plan to expand the team quickly and efficiently. I am so proud of my team’s work in reorganizing the trial process.

In a nutshell, we streamlined our interview process and batched our trials. Formerly, we would interview people and then start a trial for them based on their availability. So at any given time, we might have had 10 – 12 trials at different stages of the process. We now group people by a common start date to speed things up. So we can start a trial cohort that goes through training together. The members have common experiences, help each other, and learn from each other. As we review their work, our assessments are easier as we deal with the same issues since we can offer feedback on the same stages instead of splitting our attention as much as before. It also makes for a stronger bond. The folks that make it successfully through to the end of the cohort have forged a working relationship that is a joy to observe.

All this effort resulted in growing the team by 90 people last year. Previously, the highest number of new hires in a year was around 40. It was exciting to be involved in a project of that magnitude.

I look forward to what the next 6 years have in store.