In this interview, André Maneiro reflects on his journey with WordPress, starting in 2006 when he joined a local community network to publish his thoughts using the platform. He shares his passion for open-source, detailing how it shaped his career and led to his first contributions to the WordPress community, such as translations and tutorials. Andre discusses some of his key projects, including contributions to theme.json, Global Styles, and his tool, docgen, which has been essential for generating API documentation for the Gutenberg project. He also offers advice for new developers on building a sustainable open-source career and emphasizes the importance of in-person events like Rome Core Days to foster community engagement and onboarding.
Can you share your first experience with WordPress, and what made you choose it?
The first experience I remember was in 2006. Someone from a local community set up a multi-site network using WordPress. I had a MSN space at the time and wanted to publish my thoughts using an open-source tool, so I joined this network and started blogging using WordPress.
How did you start contributing to open-source projects, and what was your first contribution to the WordPress community?
I believe open-source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation, so I prioritized jobs that enabled me to work with it over any other thing early in my career. I was lucky that I found some. Given I was paid to use or develop solutions on top of open-source projects, at some point, it became beneficial to me (and the companies I worked for) to start contributing back in some form.
Probably my first contribution to the WordPress community was not software, but a translation for my native language (Galician) or a tutorial for the block editor handbook.
What are some important projects or contributions you have made within the WordPress ecosystem?
Perhaps the more visible contributions I’ve made to WordPress would be around theme.json & Global Styles a few years back, or to the DataViews & DataForm libraries lately.
Though my longest standing contribution is probably a tool I wrote to generate API docs for JavaScript projects. It’s called docgen and I published it more than 4 years ago. It’s been silently powering most of Gutenberg API docs since. I like that it has been useful for so long and that it required so little effort/maintenance.
What advice would you give to developers who are new to WordPress or open-source?
If you care about having a career in open-source, find ways to make it financially sustainable for you to contribute back.
How do you keep up with the latest trends in WordPress development, and what resources would you suggest for new developers who want to get involved?
I like the Developer Blog. It’s been really useful for me to catch up with features I didn’t know about. I imagine it’d be also a good way for newcomers to take a peek at what’s happening and then dig deeper into the things that interest you the most.
In your opinion, what are the best ways to engage and attract new developers to the WordPress community, and how can we make the onboarding process more welcoming and inclusive?
I believe part of a successful onboarding in a global open-source project has to do with in-person events. That’s why I’m attending Rome Core Days: the premise of the event is interesting to me and I believe it’ll resonate with other developers as well.
