Helen Hou-Sandí
@helen
Helen is the Director of Open Source Initiatives at 10up and a Lead Developer for the WordPress open source software project. From her start as a PHP/MySQL applications developer to focusing on "the front-end of the back-end" from both the development and UX perspectives, she has a knack for figuring out what people need to get things done on their websites, including most recently on the relaunch of WhiteHouse.gov for the Biden-Harris Administration.
Although she never knows whether to tell people she's a New Yorker or from Virginia Beach, today Helen is based in San José, Costa Rica with her husband, two kids, and their very close-knit extended family. When not at the computer or hanging out with said family, she can be found at the piano or posting pictures of food she's making.
WordPress
WordPress is an open source web publishing platform, now powering more than 41% of the web. In addition to the 18 year old core software, it is the center of a bustling consumer and developer ecosystem, with tens of thousands of plugins and themes available and a healthy commercial market. While WordPress (in)famously does not run its entire development lifecycle on GitHub or even Git, today more and more parts are managed outside of the traditional Trac+SVN workflow.
