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Gary Jones

VIP Customer Experience AI Engineer at WordPress VIP

@garyj Basingstoke, UK joined Dec 2010

garyjones.link github.com/GaryJones Slack: @GaryJ
    Teams Polyglots
    Languages en-gb en-ca en-au

    Bio

    I’m a Customer Experience AI Engineer in the enterprise WordPress space, currently figuring out how AI fits into the way our support and engineering teams actually do their jobs at WordPress VIP.

    Most of my recent work sits at the intersection of three things: AI inside engineering and support operations, the open-source plugins our customers rely on, and the community that holds the WordPress ecosystem together.

    On the AI side, I’ve been exploring how AI agents and MCP servers can connect to the operational tools support teams use day-to-day, from scheduling and coverage through to triage. There’s still a lot to learn here.

    On the plugin side, I review and merge contributions to VIP-owned WordPress plugins used by tens of thousands of sites. Earlier this year I helped launch customerhub.wpvip.com, a community hub for our enterprise customers.

    On the community side, as of WP 7.0 I’ve contributed to 29 of the last 39 WordPress core releases, I’m a General Translation Editor for British English on translate.wordpress.org, and I’m an organiser for WordCamp Europe (Basel 2025, Krakow 2026). I’m also a named contributor on PSR-5, the PHPDoc standard.

    Before VIP, I ran my own agency for ten years, was a long-standing contributor to the Genesis Framework, and co-hosted the UK Genesis Podcast. Earlier than that, I taught maths and IT, including a stint as a team leader for prison education. The teaching instinct still drives a lot of what I do.

    WordPress Origin Story

    I first tried WordPress while living in Malaysia from 2007 to 2008. It was definitely something different than editing .html files by hand on Geocities! I then came back to the UK and ran my own WordPress development business for 10 years.

    Badges

    CODE
    3 badges
    Core Contributor '15 Meta Contributor '15 Plugin Developer
    CONTENT
    2 badges
    Documentation Contributor '16 Photo Contributor '22
    COMMUNITY
    4 badges
    B BuddyPress Contributor '25 WordCamp Organizer '16 WordCamp Speaker '16 WordCamp Volunteer '25
    PRACTICE
    2 badges
    Accessibility Contributor '19 Support Contributor '26
    POLYGLOTS
    2 badges
    Translation Contributor '15 Translation Editor '15

    Current Job

    VIP Customer Experience AI Engineer
    Feb 2026 – Present
    WordPress VIP
    Helping VIP's support and engineering teams get the right information to the right people at the right time, through AI enablement and engineering work that improves our internal tools and customer-facing plugins.

    Job History

    Interim Support Strategic Initiatives Team Lead
    Nov 2024 – Jan 2025
    WordPress VIP
    Leading the small but mighty Ironworks team, as they deliver hiring, support project engineering, and other projects that help our Support team to do their best work.
    Support Projects Engineering Lead
    Sep 2024 – Feb 2026
    WordPress VIP
    Providing technical support and knowledge as part of the VIP Support Senior Leadership Team. Project manager for delivering a community hub to our customers.
    Premier Support Lead
    Jan 2024 – Sep 2024
    WordPress VIP
    Leading the Astrum team, supporting our Support Engineers and Customer Success Engineers as they support our enterprise customers in the WordPress space.
    Premier Engineering Lead
    Sep 2022 – Jan 2024
    WordPress VIP
    Providing engineering support across all of VIP Premier Support.
    Customer Success Engineering Lead
    Nov 2020 – Sep 2022
    WordPress VIP
    Led a team of 15 CS Engineers as they supported enterprise customers with their WordPress applications.
    Senior Software Engineer, Enterprise
    Apr 2019 – Nov 2020
    WordPress VIP
    Senior Software Engineer, Support
    Oct 2018 – Apr 2019
    WordPress VIP
    WordPress Engineer and Agency Owner
    Oct 2008 – Oct 2018
    Gamajo
    Providing technical solutions and services that add value and help businesses grow.

    Recent impact

    Score weights high-impact work (commits, releases, approved translations, props) at 3x routine activity.

    Last 30 days
    7contributions
    high4
    medium3
    score15
    Last 90 days
    40contributions
    high14
    medium26
    score68
    Last 12 months
    156contributions
    high90
    medium66
    score336

    Team focus

    Share of contributions across teams during the last 365 days

    WordPress releases

    Contributed to 29 releases
    • 7.0
    • 6.9
    • 6.8
    • 6.6
    • 6.3
    • 6.1
    • 6.0
    • 5.9
    • 5.8
    • 5.6
    • 5.5
    • 5.4
    • 5.3
    • 5.2
    • 5.1
    • 5.0
    • 4.7
    • 4.5
    • 4.4
    • 4.3
    • 4.2
    • 4.0
    • 3.9
    • 3.8
    • 3.7
    • 3.6
    • 3.5
    • 3.4
    • 3.3

    Contributions

    Type
    June 2026
    Jun 11 Thu · 14:39
    Polyglots high
    Reviewed 12 strings on translate.wordpress.org.
    Jun 11 Thu · 10:58
    Polyglots high
    Translated 70 strings on translate.wordpress.org.
    Jun 09 Tue · 14:50
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Compatible with WordPress 7.0?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi Iain, Thanks for checking in about WordPress 7.0 compatibility. Edit Flow runs its automated…
    Jun 09 Tue · 14:34
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Page preview using incorrect page template, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi @adamfoale — just to close the loop. This was Edit Flow keeping the slug…
    Jun 01 Mon · 13:33
    Polyglots high
    Reviewed 67 strings on translate.wordpress.org.
    Jun 01 Mon · 13:18
    Polyglots high
    Translated 512 strings on translate.wordpress.org.
    May 2026
    May 15 Fri · 17:49
    Polyglots med
    Suggested 2 strings on translate.wordpress.org.
    May 13 Wed · 21:33
    Meta med
    Wrote a comment on the post Hello, I am the author…, on the site Translate WordPress:
    Approved for #en_gb.
    May 07 Thu · 16:52
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to After update the plugin author widget isn’t rendered, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thanks @alithewpdev, the stack traces have made the cause clear. This is a stale-JS issue on…
    May 06 Wed · 22:04
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Plugin Not Working, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    The dropdown populating means the /coauthors/v1/search/ endpoint is fine and the search-as-you-type wiring works. The “selecting does…

    Developer

    3 plugins

    Contributor

    13 plugins

    Photos

    1 contribution

    View all 1 photos in the Photo Directory

    Plugins

    42 favorites

    Translations

    5 locales
    en_GB English (UK) (English) General Translation Editor Translation Contributor

    Contributed translations to 3,665 projects.

    WordPress for Android WordPress for iOS Browse Happy Forums Learn WordPress o2 Openverse Pattern Directory WordPress Plugin Directory Rosetta WordPress Theme Directory WordCamp.org WordPress.org wp20.wordpress.net Patterns edelpaper 12 Step Meeting List 2 Click Social Media Buttons 3DPrint Lite 404 Redirect Redirectioner 404 to 301 – Redirect, Log and Notify 404 Errors Smart Custom 404 Error Page a3 Portfolio a3 Responsive Slider A5 Recent Post Widget AAC Scoring ABN Lookup for Gravity Forms About Me 3000 widget Absolute Privacy Access Category Password Access Monitor Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker – WCAG, ADA, EAA and Section 508 compliance AccessiYes Accessibility Widget for ADA, EAA & WCAG Readiness Accessible Video Library Frontend Post WordPress Plugin – AccessPress Anonymous Post Social Auto Poster AccessPress Social Counter AccessPress Social Icons AccessPress Social Login Lite – Social Login WordPress Plugin AccessPress Social Share WP TFeed ACF Content Analysis for Yoast SEO Date & Time Picker for Advanced Custom Fields Date and Time Picker Field Advanced Custom Fields Page Builder ACF Recent Posts Widget ACF: TablePress

    Showing the first 48 of 3,665 projects; search above to filter the full list.

    View all on translate.wordpress.org

    en_CA English (Canada) (English) Translation Contributor

    Contributed translations to 14 projects.

    WordPress Plugin Directory Recent Posts Slider WordPress 4.3.x WordPress 4.4.x WordPress 4.5.x WordPress 4.6.x WordPress 4.7.x WordPress 4.8.x WordPress 4.9.x WordPress 5.0.x WordPress 5.1.x WordPress 5.2.x WordPress 5.3.x WordPress 7.0.x - Development

    View all on translate.wordpress.org

    en_AU English (Australia) (English) Translation Contributor

    Contributed translations to 5 projects.

    Buzz Instagram Feed WooCommerce Product Details Customiser iShop Savile Row Weaver Xtreme

    View all on translate.wordpress.org

    en_NZ English (New Zealand) (English) Translation Contributor

    Contributed translations to 2 projects.

    WordPress Plugin Directory Rosetta

    View all on translate.wordpress.org

    art_xemoji 🌏🌍🌎 (Emoji) (Emoji) Translation Contributor

    Contributed translations to 1 project.

    WordPress 7.0.x - Development

    View all on translate.wordpress.org