Why is there no clear map from installing WordPress to landing a WordPress job? Joe Howard asked me about that on episode 142 of the WPMRR WordPress Podcast. I was the guest, and the episode credited me as Courtney Engle Robertson.
🎙️ Episode details
- Show: WPMRR WordPress Podcast, episode 142
- Host: Joe Howard, WP Buffs
- Guest: me, credited as Courtney Engle Robertson
- Released: April 13, 2021
- Topics: the map from WordPress user to WordPress job, who builds Learn WordPress, and teaching for a hiring pipeline
- Episode page: WPMRR episode 142 show notes and audio
The player’s captions come from a machine transcript I generated in September 2026. It hasn’t been proofread yet, so expect errors.
🏫 Two former teachers compare notes
Joe and I both taught before we built websites: he taught high school math, and I taught high school business education, including programming. We agreed that school computer classes rarely got the attention or equipment they needed.
I described my path from the classroom to client work, then back to teaching WordPress at a vocational school, and later to The Events Calendar. Both of my parents were teachers too, which explains a lot.
🗺️ Where’s the map from WordPress user to WordPress job?
WordPress ran about 40 percent of the web then, I said, yet I’d found only one other bootcamp teaching WordPress as development. Someone aiming for tier two support or a junior developer role had no clear route to follow.
Learn WordPress could help draw that map, from “I just want to install WordPress” to building a headless site. The team needed feedback on which steps were missing in between.
🤝 Who builds Learn WordPress?
Joe asked whether I worked for Automattic. I didn’t. Some lesson plans and screenshot updates came from Automattic employees, I said, but most of the writing came from other volunteers. When I dug through GitHub and the Training team’s Make site, I counted more than 160 contributors by the time Learn launched.
🧩 Teaching for a WordPress job pipeline
I was teaching with Code Differently, which then served people in Delaware affected by COVID. Joe liked the idea of a pipeline from training to jobs. I agreed, and said the hard part is fitting WordPress into a web development curriculum, because employers’ needs have to come first.
I also talked about subcontracting. Many WordPress business owners succeed without code, then later want to learn some or hire subcontractors. Either way, they need to know what to learn, and in what order.
🧪 What can you take on finding a WordPress job?
- Learners: name the WordPress job you want, then find the gap between your skills and that role.
- Agency owners: tell trainers what you need from junior hires; curriculum follows that feedback.
- Contributors: Learn WordPress grows through volunteers, and missing steps are a good place to start.
Also, more conversations like this one live in my podcast and speaking archive.
🗓️ Archival note
WPMRR released this episode on April 13, 2021. This post was dated May 11, 2021, and held only the video. On November 9, 2026, I moved it to the release date and wrote this summary from the show notes, chapter list and the unproofread machine captions. Speaker labels aren’t in those captions, so I paraphrased and attributed only what’s clear from context.