Podcast E654 – The Next WordPress Job Titles  🔗 **Source:** [Podcast E654 – The Next WordPress Job Titles](https://share.snipd.com/episode/22e53cb7-8c42-4e28-a830-189d54569e41) ## Highlights - **Update All-in-One WP Migration Immediately** - Update the All-in-One WP Migration and Backup plugin immediately if you use it. - A SQL injection vulnerability affects the widely used plugin, making delayed updates especially risky. Transcript: Adam Sobey One is that there was a SQL injection vulnerability found in all in one WP migration and backup plugin. So that's not good. A lot of people use it. I've used it in the past. Not currently using it, but if you are using it, you're going to definitely want to update that for sure. So link in the show notes about that if you want to read more about it. It's over from Bleeping Computer where I found that news. And it was a big deal. So check that out. Make sure you're updated if you're using that right now. ([Time 0:01:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/62375d2d-ab7b-42f5-89dc-c6dfa3c329c6)) - **WordPress Careers Are Becoming Hybrid Roles** - Emerging WordPress roles combine domain judgment with data, code, automation, and AI agents. - The valuable skill is redesigning business workflows, not merely learning another prompting tool. Transcript: Adam Sobey This week i want to talk once again about jobs more specifically wordpress jobs and even more specifically, what job titles we might see over the next year or so and what that may look Like. And to be honest, this idea came to me from listening to another podcast I heard recently, with a pretty irresistible title it was quote, marketing engineer, the 1 million job with AI Agents, end quote. Okay, so now, am I telling you that learning a few AI tools means you are suddenly going to make a million dollars a year? No, please do not send me that invoice. But the bigger idea here is what caught my intention. The premise was that marketing is moving into another phase. We went from traditional marketing to digital marketing to growth marketing and now toward people who can combine marketing judgment with data, code, automation, and the AI agent Landscape, right? So the title may change. The role is basically someone who can build a system that continuously learns from real business signals and then turns that into useful work. And while listening to that podcast, I kept thinking this does really apply well to WordPress because WordPress has always had these people who sit between disciplines. Those examples are developer plus marketer, designer plus builder, agency owner plus systems person, content person who also knows SEO, analytics, plugins, and enough code to be Dangerous. I've been all of those in some capacity. ([Time 0:03:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b9dabafb-babc-46f8-9035-75cfdaa81dd5)) - **Redesign Workflows Instead Of Chasing AI Tools** - Focus on the valuable WordPress workflow you can redesign with AI rather than chasing exact job titles. - A developer may also handle blocks, CRM integration, DNS, analytics, performance, and client training. Transcript: Adam Sobey Okay, part one, the big idea is not the job title. Do not get hung up on the exact title. Marketing engineer, it's catchy. Yes, you could also call it AI growth operator, an automation strategist, or five other things what may fancy you that day. Much like how we say it depends when answering a WordPress question. It's the same thing here. Think about how many people in our ecosystem have had titles that never fully described what they actually did. WordPress developer in quotes could mean someone building custom plugins in PHP all day or can mean someone assembling a site with blocks, integrating the CRM, fixing DNS, setting Up analytics, improving core web vitals, and training a client before lunch. The skill that becomes more valuable now is not simply knowing how to prompt JATGPT, or your choice here, of AI tools. It's knowing a business or a website well enough to decide what happen, then using AI and automation to make that happen faster, more consistently, and with some measurable result. So a quick actionable takeaway here is if you're thinking about your own career, stop asking only what AI tool should I learn? Because I think a better question is what valuable workflow in my current WordPress work could I redesign using AI? ([Time 0:05:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/80d9bc2d-d7f3-43ef-a505-349d3892d164)) - **Workflows Outlast The AI Tools** - Durable advantage comes from repeatable workflows, not whichever AI tool is currently popular. - A reliable process gathers context, produces work, reviews it, gains approval, and measures results. Transcript: Adam Sobey Number one, become a hybrid, not just the AI user. The strongest future roles are probably going to be hybrids. The other part of the podcast episode described the marketing engineer as part marketer, part product person, part rev ops, part data analyst, part creator, and part engineer. There's a lot going on. In WordPress terms, that could be a developer plus automation, agency strategist plus AI, content strategist plus technical SEO, etc. The advantage is that you are not the world's best at all six things, is that you understand enough of them to connect the dots. Number two, workflow matters more than whichever AI tool is hot this week. This may be the most useful point of the whole thing here. In reviewing that, my notes from that podcast, it said, quote, the tools will keep changing, but the workflow is the thing to learn, end quote. That's worth putting on a sticky note. Yes, I said a sticky note or save it as a skill in your chat GPT, claw, Gemini codex, whatever comes next, those things will change. A solid process for taking a client request, gathering context, checking the site, producing work, reviewing it, approving it, and measuring what happens as much more durable. ([Time 0:06:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8bd62b3e-4429-42fb-a876-021e71c83f76)) - **Ground AI In Site Knowledge And Guardrails** - AI becomes useful when grounded in a site knowledge base and connected to business data. - Human approval should remain before publishing, changing prices, deleting content, or emailing thousands of customers. Transcript: Adam Sobey Okay, number three, give AI real context, not random prompts, because you'll need what we're calling a growth repo, which is basically a structured home for customer truth, the brand Voice, the experiments, results, and those agents' instructions. We translate that into our WordPress world, and you have what's called a site knowledge base. We used to do it all the time. It might contain the brand guide, the plugin stack, the custom code notes, client goals, analytics, support tickets, editorial rules. The list goes on. You get it? Now, the AI agent is not starting from scratch every time it has actual content. We just put that in a growth repo. That's what we call it now. Number four, connect AI to the site and business data. This is where the idea becomes more interesting because versus AI writes my blog posts, a useful system can look at search console, analytics, CRM data, and the support requests, the WooCommerce information, form, site content, and then recommend or perform a specific task. WordPress is essentially interesting here because so much business data already flows through or around the website. Okay, number five, keeping humans in the approval loop. Totally important here. For the near term, I think the real valuable people will know where automation should stop. Draft the page? Sure. Suggest an internal link? Great. Flag a plugin update or accessibility problem? Absolutely. Automatically publishing something, changing pricing, deleting content, or emailing 5,000 customers without a review? Maybe not so much. Knowing the permission boundary is going to be a huge part of this job. Okay, number six, measuring outcomes, not AI activity. Because let's not forget about knowing the distinction between the activity and business results. Sending 500 messages in activity? Okay, qualified replies are the result. For WordPress, generating 500 articles is an activity, but better conversions, more useful site search traffic, fewer support tickets, faster site maintenance, or fewer accessible Issues are the result. ([Time 0:07:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7c661f86-534b-4c50-8bab-6aa5f06edf0f)) - **Seven New WordPress AI Roles Are Emerging** - Seven emerging roles include AI integration engineer, agentic developer, workflow architect, and AI growth engineer. - They connect WordPress expertise with APIs, permissions, SEO, conversion, content, and measurable growth systems. Transcript: Adam Sobey All right, now we're moving into part three, which is the actual seven WordPress job titles I kind of think we may see more of. Number one, WordPress AI integration engineer. It's a mouthful. I get it. They're all pretty wordy, if you will. This feels like the most obvious one. The person connects AI capabilities to real WordPress sites. They may integrate model APIs, the WordPress AI client, the abilities API, MCPs, custom plugins. You get the gist there. They're making AI useful inside an existing WordPress environment. A good fit for this would be currently plugin developers, agency developers, technical integrators, and people comfortable with APIs and automation. Number two is agentic WordPress developer. This is a variation of the traditional WordPress developer. Instead of only building features for humans clicking around the dashboard, this developer also thinks about how software agents will discover and use those features. That means structured abilities, permissions, clear schemes, schemas, excuse me, logging, safe actions, and predictable outputs. A good fit here would be experienced WordPress developers who enjoy APIs, architecture, plugin development, security, and developer tooling. Number three is WordPress AI workflow architect. This one may show up in more agencies and larger orgs because the job is to look across content, support development, QA maintenance, and reporting along with sales and client services, And identify repeatable workflows that can be partially automated. Then you design that system, choose the tools, define the guardrails, and make sure humans know where they stay involved. The good fit here is agency operators, technical project managers, solutions architect, advanced implementers, and consultants. Number four, WordPress marketing engineer slash AI growth engineer. There's a direct translation of the podcast that kicked off this idea. Imagine someone who understands WordPress, SEO, conversion, content, landing pages, CRMs, and AI agents. Their job is not to simple make more content. Their job is building a growth system around the website that watches for the real signals, proposes tests, ships landing pages, or content updates, and then learns from those results. The good fit here would be technical marketers, SEO people, growth marketers, agency owners, and the WordPress pro who already lives halfway between marketing and development. ([Time 0:09:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3996eaf6-c68e-4aff-98e2-2df3881c315a)) - **Turn One WordPress Workflow Into A Case Study** - Run a 30-day experiment on one recurring workflow, documenting inputs, site knowledge, automation, and results. - A small approved workflow that saves time or improves quality becomes a case study, not merely AI experience. Transcript: Adam Sobey I want to offer a simple 30-day experiment. It's a little bit of a challenge. Okay. If someone listening wanted an actionable way to start, here is the experiment I would run. Week one, pick a rural world WordPress site you know well, audit one reoccurring workflow, maybe content updates, client reporting, support triage, or accessibility. Okay. And write down every step and where data comes from. That's just week one. Week two, create a simple knowledge folder for that site. The brand voice, goals, important plugins, analytic notes, common support issues, editorial rules, and examples of good output. You don't need some giant enterprise knowledge graph. A well-organized folder is just fine. Week three, build one small AI-assisted workflow. Not just one, not seven. Maybe every Monday it reviews Search Console and suggests three content updates. Maybe it checks for a group of pages for stale information. Maybe it summarizes support tickets and identifies the top recurring WordPress problems, but keeping human in the approval for the next steps. And week four, measure whether it actually helped. Did it save time? Did quality improve? Did you catch something earlier? Did conversions improve? Did a client get a clear report? Document the before, the workflow, and the result. Now you have something far more valuable than iNoChatGPT. You have a case study. ([Time 0:14:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/108d3889-f02e-4a08-a6fe-a11908bcd4a0)) - **WordPress Connectors Gain Value In The AI Era** - WordPress professionals have an advantage because they already connect plugins, APIs, hosting, CRMs, commerce, and content. - AI makes those long-standing connector skills more valuable rather than making them obsolete. Transcript: Adam Sobey So are these exact titles guaranteed to show up on LinkedIn tomorrow? Of course not. Some will. Some will get renamed. Some companies will simply just add those responsibilities to jobs that already exist. But I do think the direction is pretty clear. WordPress professionals who can combine domain knowledge with AI, automation good judgment, and measurable outcomes are going to have very interesting opportunities. And I actually think WordPress people have an advantage here. We've spent 20-plus years gluing systems together, plugins, API, hosting, email platforms, CRMs, e-commerce, content, and whatever the random thing a client bought last Tuesday At 9 p.m. You get my drift here. The new era is this. In some ways, more of the same, but the connectors are just getting smarter. Either way, I would spend less time worrying about whether AI is going to take the WordPress job and more time asking which part of my WordPress knowledge becomes more valuable when I compare it with agents and the automation. That's probably the better question and honestly, a much more interesting one. ([Time 0:15:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5a030db4-5358-4365-8f9f-0ff4e04f23a6))