Transcript
[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.
Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, WooCommerce’s challenges and innovations in a changing WordPress landscape.
If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.
If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.
So on the podcast today, we have Brian Coords.
Brian has been active in the WordPress space for over a decade, starting out in agencies, building and managing websites, and is now a developer advocate at WooCommerce, bridging the gap between woo’s internal engineers and the wider developer community. His journey includes being a high school teacher, working for nonprofits, and writing for the WP Tavern before landing his role at Automatic.
If you’re interested in where WooCommerce and WordPress itself are headed, this episode will help as Brian shares insights on WordPress’s evolving focus, the importance of embracing AI, and how a slower pace of change can be a strength in any open source ecosystem.
He talks about the massive rebrand at WooCommerce, the challenges and opportunities in competing with SaaS giants, and the unique developer relations role that balances his technical experience with communication skills.
We get into how the team Brian works with supports developers and agencies with documentation, office hours, and feedback loops, and how WooCommerce’s global Reach