Human Made, open source & enterprise
Human Made was founded with a mission to bring the power and freedom of the open source WordPress platform to the world’s largest companies.
Over the past 20+ years we have seen WordPress grow to become world’s leading CMS, and we’ve seen the transformation that’s possible when organisations break free of proprietary tech.
Bringing open source to some of the world’s largest companies
Our stake in the platform that powers us
Since our very beginning, Human Made has been part of the WordPress story. We are a company born of the values of open source.
It is reflected in how we run our company, in our deep knowledge of WordPress, and in our contributions and investments in the ecosystem we call home.
As a company, and on behalf of our clients, we are proud to do what we can to ensure the future of WordPress as the world’s best CMS.
Twenty years of contributing to WordPress
Both as a company and as individuals, Human Made has had a significant impact on WordPress core development over the years.
Our team contributes across every release through code and bug fixes. Our processes involve sending patches upstream, and we make sure that we stay ahead of every development in WordPress.
Mike Little
Developer Advocate
- Co-founder of WordPress
- WordCamp Organiser
Siobhan McKeown
COO
- WordCamp Europe Co-founder
- WordCamp Whitley Bay Organiser
Ryan McCue
Director of Product
- WordPress REST API creator
- WordPress Core Committor
Petya Raykovska
Director of Agency Operations
- WordPress Polyglots Team Mentor
- WordCamp Organiser
John Blackbourn
Director of WordPress Security
- WordPress Security Team Lead
- WordPress 4.1 Release Lead
Jenny Wong
Associate Director of Engineering
- WordCamp Europe Organiser
- WordPress Core Contributor
Some of our open source highlights
WP REST API
We played the lead role in developing the WordPress REST API and bringing it into the core software.
Sponsoring Ryan and Joe over several years of contribution, we also drove community engagement and adoption of the REST API, showcasing its potential to expand WordPress’ use as a full-fledged application framework.
Core Sitemaps
Google partnered with us to develop an XML sitemaps feature for WordPress, which was shipped as part of WordPress 5.5.
We led the project, researching, develop a proof of concept, and integrating the XML Sitemaps into WordPress. The project improved search engine discoverability for WordPress sites by creating an extensible XML Sitemaps API.
WordPress Security
As an internet scale platform, security is deeply important to WordPress. It’s also of critical importance to our enterprise customers.
We’ve been involved with WordPress Security for many years, and currently sponsor our Director of WordPress Security, John Blackbourn, to lead the WordPress Security Team.
We are open source community builders
A thriving open source project needs a thriving community to contribute to the software and evangelise its use.
Human Made is proud to have founders of WordCamp Europe and WordCamp Asia on our team, and we have supported team members to lead flagship WordCamps, local events, and meetups.
We organise online as well as offline, participating across the make.WordPress.org teams in areas such as sustainability, accessibility, community, and diversity.
WordPress for the world
WordPress is used globally by developers, users, builders, and business owners, and Human Made has focused on supporting the open source ecosystem around the core WordPress software to ensure the platform is available to everyone.
We’ve done this by:
- Investing our time in the Polyglots Team, to make sure that WordPress is available in as many languages as possible.
- Contributing to the Documentation Team, to ensure WordPress users and developers can access the resources they need.
- Helping to make WordPress as accessible as possible through our Accessibility Team contributions.
- Advocating for and increasing diversity, equality, inclusion, and belonging as part of the WordPress DEIB working group.
- Sponsoring wppackagist, PHP CodeSniffer, HeroPress, and WP Includes.
Growing WordPress in enterprise
Human Made is a co-founding member of the Scale Consortium, a collective focused on enhancing WordPress for enterprise use.
The consortium aims to scale WordPress’s capabilities in areas like performance, security, and integration to meet the needs of large organisations. Human Made’s deep involvement underscores our commitment to pushing the boundaries of WordPress, making it a more robust and scalable solution for enterprises.
Partner with our Open Source team
The WordPress open-source ecosystem relies on voluntary contributions from individuals and organisations to keep innovating and moving the project forward.
By sponsoring our team, you enable our WordPress experts to dedicate time and expertise to making WordPress more secure, stable, and powerful for everyone. Partnering with us means investing in a thriving ecosystem that benefits millions of people and businesses worldwide. We’ll even help train your team to become active contributors too.
The future of open-source depends on collaboration. Let’s build a better, more accessible WordPress together.