There’s something deeply reassuring about hearing a seasoned contributor say, “I had no idea what I was doing.”
That’s how my conversation with Olga Gleckler began. What followed was an honest, funny, and moving conversation about her path from hardware student to software developer—and eventually, to an outspoken advocate for contributor mentorship in WordPress.
“I started writing my own CMS… because I didn’t know better. WordPress was like a revelation.”
Olga shared how a frustrating job, a broken website, and a bit of curiosity led her down the WordPress path. From her early days reverse-engineering PHP to the moment she discovered the WordPress community through WordCamp Nordic, her journey is anything but linear.
We talked about what drew her to WordPress (spoiler: it’s hooks and flexibility), her love-hate relationship with Gutenberg (she’s now fully onboard), and the future of WordPress contribution. Her biggest mission now? Making contribution more accessible for newcomers:
“You don’t want to do work that no one needs. You need support. But you also need to ask. That’s why mentorship matters.”
Olga believes mentorship shouldn’t be a limited-run program, but a permanent and accessible part of the contributor ecosystem. And I couldn’t agree more.
If you care about the future of WordPress, this is an interview you shouldn’t miss.
👉 Want to connect with Olga? You’ll find her in Make WordPress Slack or on Twitter: @olgagleckler
Full Transcript
Roger Williams (00:00)
When did you start getting involved with that and start contributing back to the project?
Olga Gleckler (00:04)
Firstly, I had no idea about any community that exists, but when my boss started to switch to this system, I was sure that it’s like a mistake. I started to look around for support group. I needed some people who understand me and found out my local community, my local meetup. I am very grateful that people was doing this thing. And then I started to look for more events and
I was lucky again because it was WordCamp Nordic. In 2019, in February, I went there. It was quick, cheap for me and I was so excited. This event opened a whole new world for me. So first thing I did when I went back from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, I bought a ticket to Berlin. And from Berlin, I started to contribute to marketing. I was so excited and I…
Roger Williams (00:33)
Okay.
Olga Gleckler (00:55)
had a great time in marketing team and big thank you to Abatako who mentored me and pushed me forward and convinced me that I actually can do things.
Roger Williams (01:05)
Hey y’all, it’s Roger with Kinsta. I’m joined today by a new friend, Olga. Hey, Olga, how are you?
Olga Gleckler (01:11)
Nice, thank you. Great to see you.
Roger Williams (01:13)
Yeah, it’s great to see you too. We ran into each other for the first time at WordCamp EU earlier this year and had a lovely conversation about all things WordPress. And so I’m really excited to get you on this show because I want to learn more about not only what you’re working on currently and in the future, but also learn like more about how you got into development and how you got into WordPress code. So take us back a little bit. How did you get into becoming a developer?
Olga Gleckler (01:39)
You know, when I finished my education at school, I was thinking logically. I had no idea what I want to do, but future is sure is with computers, right? So you have to do something with computers. And I decided to be a programmer, but I messed up a bit and turned out that I was studying hardware instead of software.
Anyway, I landed a job in a software company just updating system at clients. It’s like closest thing to software I was able to land the job on. And then I think I wanted to become a programmer, but I was like, I had no idea how to start. And then I had some lousy job, but…
Roger Williams (02:11)
Okay.
Olga Gleckler (02:25)
My boss had a site that needs to be maintained and he had a row with the developer actually. So I took it to maintaining and I started to decipher how it’s working. I understood this and since this I started like, like normally it turns out that I can do these things. And, but I, I was not like very bold to apply for a job.
as a developer. So it was a couple of more years before I actually started a job as a developer. So you need to take a carriage.
Roger Williams (03:00)
Yeah, no, absolutely. So with that first website, how was that being built? Was that just raw HTML or was there a system to
Olga Gleckler (03:08)
It was custom made system by this developer, but I read the code on PHP. I understood this. I started to write my own content management systems. Yeah. So I took a way to these things because I had no idea how things should be done. So I had only one working example, but I was lucky to have this. And actually I started to write my own things.
Roger Williams (03:18)
Ha ha ha.
No,
Okay. At what point did WordPress kind of enter the scene for you?
Olga Gleckler (03:39)
Of course, when I started to develop sites, people started asking me to help with something that already exists. And I started to came across WordPress. Sometimes, for example, a developer made a mistake in infinite loop in its theme. And I had no idea what is the whole thing is about. It took me like two whole days, the whole weekend to find this loop.
But I solved the problem and it was the key.
Roger Williams (04:08)
Okay, absolutely. When did it kind of click like, wow, this WordPress is much easier than just rolling my own content management system?
Olga Gleckler (04:18)
I think it clicked very quickly, but I didn’t, was able to, like figure out which system is the best one. I was working with another one and with a couple more systems, but then I, of course, I landed a job in fashion company and I had a site to maintain and develop further. But then my boss decided to, that he needs a like cool new look.
Roger Williams (04:26)
Okay.
Olga Gleckler (04:44)
And I was unable to produce cool look. I can produce like normal functional look, not cool one. So, and he found an agency and they’ve sold him another system I’ve already working with and had no great experience with this one. But they sold this system to my boss and I was like in shock because I was feeling that we are making a mistake, but I had like no voice. No…
nothing against this decision. It was like right feelings because it took like two years, a lot of money, a lot of stress for everyone and both blaming me as a result that I didn’t tell him that it is a mistake. Yeah, so…
Roger Williams (05:30)
Yeah.
Olga Gleckler (05:33)
At this point I’ve already understood that WordPress is the best choice and decided to stood with WordPress. So we built this horrible thing and I went then they asked me to return back and I supported them One year and a half more Yeah, and finally finally when I landed full-time cool job. I Told them no, I cannot support you anymore for years
Roger Williams (05:55)
Oof. ⁓
Olga Gleckler (05:58)
and
it took them four years more to rebuild it with another system. Yeah, people stumble on the same rake again.
Roger Williams (06:03)
jeez.
Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so you started, now you’re like, okay, WordPress is kind of what I want to work with. Was there any like specific features about WordPress that made you initially go, yeah, this is the one to work
Olga Gleckler (06:20)
I think hooks because I can figure out how to do things on my way. Like if I need to change some things, I can do this and I’m sure that I can do this and all plugins like reliable plugins offer hooks as well. So you know that some things can be done. You just need to figure out how to find right hooks, et cetera. And for example, REST API as well.
you can easily extend it by your own endpoint and do whatever you want. It’s easy. And if things are looking hard with WordPress, most likely you are doing them the wrong way. So it is easy. Everything is easy. Apart possibly from good at work. Let’s take a bit.
Roger Williams (07:06)
Okay. Okay.
All right. So are you sold on Gutenberg or is it kind of still iffy for you?
Olga Gleckler (07:14)
No, I’m doing blogs, I’m working with blogs right now all the time, but it took me like a month to figure out how things are working. It was like next big challenge. Right now I’m quite comfortable and quite happy because yet again I can do whatever I want. editors are happy when I’m presenting you like new feature. Of course, my manager is presenting new feature.
Roger Williams (07:26)
Gotcha, gotcha.
Olga Gleckler (07:40)
getting all the excitement from editors and I’m just getting a response that it’s working great.
Roger Williams (07:49)
Alright, alright. Okay, so at what point, so you’re working, you’re designing, you’re building with WordPress, at what point did you realize, hey, there’s this whole other side of WordPress, the open source project. When did you start getting involved with that and start contributing back to the project?
Olga Gleckler (08:07)
Firstly, I had no idea about any community that exists, but when my boss started to switch to this system, I was sure that it’s like a mistake. I started to look around for support group. I needed some people who understand me and found out my local community, my local meetup. I am very grateful that people was doing this thing. And then I started to look for more events and
I was lucky again because it was WordCamp Nordic. In 2019, in February, I went there. It was quick, cheap for me and I was so excited. This event opened a whole new world for me. So first thing I did when I went back from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, I bought a ticket to Berlin. And from Berlin, I started to contribute to marketing. I was so excited and I…
Roger Williams (08:38)
Okay.
Olga Gleckler (09:02)
had a great time in marketing team and big thank you to Abatako who mentored me and pushed me forward and convinced me that I actually can do things.
Roger Williams (09:12)
Excellent. So, would you say that the in-person events for WordPress are really what pushed you even more into the community?
Olga Gleckler (09:21)
Yeah, to feel you like part of a community. But of course we had great time online in the marketing team and right now we still have this great time, but WordCamps is the things you should not miss.
Roger Williams (09:35)
Absolutely. Okay, so today you’re involved with testing and some different things. What are you currently working on and what are you looking forward to work on when it comes to the open source project?
Olga Gleckler (09:49)
Right now I am a representative of the test team, but my term is going to the end. We will have new people. And right now I’m looking forward to support new contributors in WordCamp Asia as part of the organizing team. And I’m thinking about things I can do in community, investigate a bit more. But of course I’m very interested in continue to support new contributors because…
This is the future and helping people is what motivates me. think this is very important. Providing an ability for people to learn to help them grow.
Roger Williams (10:26)
Absolutely, the mentor side of the WordPress project to me is always the most impressive part of it. Because with open source, right, the whole idea is this community and getting people in and working on the project. It seems like right now one of the issues that I keep seeing is that the contributors to WordPress are aging out a little bit. Like I’ve got gray hairs in my beard here if you can see, but…
Olga Gleckler (10:51)
you
Roger Williams (10:52)
What is your take on how do we get younger people more interested in WordPress?
Olga Gleckler (10:58)
You know, think Gutenberg is one thing because we need new cool look inside and outside. And of course, we have a new initiative to bring aboard more students like Campus Connect, but we need a system because right now what we have like an issue is that people are contributing like, for example, a patch. And then this patch…
Roger Williams (11:04)
Okay.
Yes.
Olga Gleckler (11:23)
No one is bothering about this patch. We need establish a flow. Some people to review this, some people to push this forward and make it consistent and provide help to new contributors for them to stay and get comfortable. So I think this is like a big work needs to be done. So it’s not about making patches, it’s about the system itself.
Roger Williams (11:46)
Okay, all right, so maybe digging into that a little bit more, and I’m not a developer here, so many things will go over my head quickly, but my understanding is the easiest way for people to get involved is doing like a bug scrub type of thing, right? And start looking at tickets and seeing how they can fix things. But what you’re really talking about is actually adding code and contributing patches and contributing improvements to it.
What about the current program do you feel makes it more difficult for new people to get involved?
Olga Gleckler (12:18)
everything and you’re not sure how to start and there is like even if you are looking for like good first bucks it not exactly
It’s not exactly 100 % guarantee that they are actually easy things. Someone decided that they are easy, but it’s someone else’s opinion as well. And we have a lot of tickets to look forward. So right now what we are offering people in test team is to specialize on one component. Take small thing.
look through the whole tickets, find some patterns, find some connections, understand the whole system before you actually will be doing something. And of course, you should ask if you have doubts, people with more experience, because you don’t want to do some job that no one needs actually. So
You need help, but sometimes you need to ask for this help and be open to communication and to interaction with people. Because if you are staying calm and just get lost, you are stuck. So you need to collaborate with people, ask questions.
And this is what we need to offer to people, make more easier for them because some people are shy. No one wants to look stupid or something. Like, I don’t know, things. Yeah, because we have like complicated things. We have a lot of tickets, more than 8,000 only in core and we have Gutenberg as well. So a lot of things to do. So we need some people who will be guiding new contributors, who helping, who reviewing and make it consistent. Yeah, it’s…
for me it’s like a dream I want this to be happening
Roger Williams (14:00)
Okay, all right, so there is already a mentorship program for people to get involved with. Do you think that that’s going on the right track?
Olga Gleckler (14:09)
We had several contributor manager programs, but right now we don’t have active program. So it was like three times we did this. So I think we need this on consistent base. So if I want to be taught, if I need a mentor, I’m raising hand and waiting until I will get a or something.
Roger Williams (14:16)
Okay
Olga Gleckler (14:33)
make some kind of group of people and mentors with them, like working in a group, something like this. So I think we should have this more consistent and like all the time.
Roger Williams (14:47)
Okay, you think, you know, one of the things that came across to me when I was looking at the mentorship program is it seemed very organized, but at the same time, maybe too organized. And what I mean by that is it was very regiment. You had a certain number of people that could apply and be a part of it. And from talking with you right now, it seems like maybe we just have a channel.
in make slack that’s for mentoring, you for people that are looking for mentors and they just they go in there and they say, hey, I could use some help with this. Does somebody want to help me understand something like this? Is that kind of what you’re proposing here?
Olga Gleckler (15:26)
I think we need some kind of things in between because people are asking questions about it’s like one time and sometimes they got an answer, sometimes don’t because it’s just lost in the process of a lot of questions and everything in the channels. So I think we need people who will raise their hands to be mentors like all the time or part-time. For example, I can mentor people like two hours a week.
Roger Williams (15:52)
Okay.
Olga Gleckler (15:53)
And
I’m available on certain hours and I’m like taking, making session and everyone can come and ask questions or something like this. And people are really value life interaction. Somehow it’s working better than writing things down. I don’t know why, but yeah, it’s like it is.
Roger Williams (16:11)
Yeah, absolutely. And I wonder if there’s an opportunity, maybe with the contributor days at different word camps to have a whole section of it of like the mentorship part of the contributor day. Do you see that potentially as being helpful or is there already kind of an aspect of this in contributor days?
Olga Gleckler (16:30)
We have to think about this. Right now with WordCamp Asia, we are thinking about raising more table leads inside the community to have a lot of support for new contributors. So possibly we can combine this initiative with Contributor Mentorship Program and make some kind of consistent income of…
people with experience. Something to grow people from new contributors to experienced contributors to table leads to team representatives, etc. So we need to grow them in more, more, more, bunches. And I have no idea what is the right word about two bunches. Anyway.
Roger Williams (16:55)
Okay.
No, absolutely. I
think what you’re saying is we really need to establish a more consistent mentorship program so that people can sign up as mentors easily and then people can be mentees easily. And maybe the existing program is maybe just a little too regiment, but we need to have some sort of organization to really make it work. So.
It’s fascinating. I love seeing your passion and excitement for the project and your enthusiasm. WordCamp Asia, sounds like, is going to be the next big WordCamp event for you. Is there anything else coming up that you want to mention?
Olga Gleckler (17:46)
I have two PHP conferences.
this autumn, so I am preparing in Russia, so I am preparing for them. I am campaigning for WordPress inside Russia because you know, you need to go outside of WordPress bubble, our safe zone. So you need to go to PHP community to show them how WordPress is working, to make them understand. At one conference, I am a backup speaker. On the second conference, I am like normal speaker and I will be talking about.
Roger Williams (18:01)
Hmm. Yes.
Olga Gleckler (18:16)
So I think it’s quite important for people to understand these things.
Roger Williams (18:20)
Excellent, excellent. We’ll share the link, we’ll get the link shared with all of those so that people know where to go. And I like the idea of getting outside of the WordPress bubble. You mentioned PHP. Do you think it’s also beneficial to get into like the JavaScript groups because of all of the React and stuff in Gutenberg now?
Olga Gleckler (18:37)
I applied to a conference that called Frontend and they decided that Gutenberg is not so much of a frontend. I was trying to explain that this is still a frontend, but I’ll try again.
Roger Williams (18:48)
Okay, all right. So maybe that’s where the rest of the community can also start working is really reaching out to the JavaScript community more and see if we can get something there. Olga, it’s great to talk to you. Thank you so much for the insights into how you got into WordPress and your thoughts about contributing and mentorship. If people want to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to reach out?
Olga Gleckler (19:08)
I think in Slack, it makes WordPress Slack. But of course, if you don’t have WordPress Slack or if you have some issues with it, I am on Twitter as well. So you can easily find me.
Roger Williams (19:17)
Okay?
Fantastic, fantastic. Olga, it’s great to talk to you. I look forward to seeing you again soon in person and hopefully have you back on here to talk more about WordPress in the future.
Olga Gleckler (19:30)
Thank you very much, it’s so exciting. My pleasure.
Roger Williams (19:33)
All right,
ciao.