From Chaos to Clarity: Engineering Your Support-to-Dev Escalation System en

As your business grows, so does the complexity of your support tickets: more users means more edge cases and a more frequent need for expertise from the developers. But if they are poorly handled, these interruptions can derail development velocity, frustrate teams, impact customer satisfaction, and degrade your product in the long run.
Drawing from successful implementations that drive WP Rocket's customer satisfaction and mentioned in almost all our TrustPilot reviews, this talk reveals a practical framework for building an efficient escalation system that enhances both developer productivity and customer experience.
We will reflect on how to:
Design and implement a structured escalation process that eliminates back-and-forth communications and captures all necessary debug information upfront;
Create automated tracking systems using existing tools (Slack, GitHub) that provide visibility without adding overhead;
Establish clear escalation criteria and outcome definitions that prevent scope creep and maintain development focus;
Build a knowledge-sharing system that transforms each escalation into a learning opportunity, fueling your product roadmap and paving the way toward AI-augmented support!
We will go through the implementation of those principles in a few companies, reflecting explicitly on the tools and approaches, share ready-to-use tactics, and discuss adaptation strategies for different team sizes and structures. You'll leave with practical tools to implement Monday morning to start transforming your own support-to-development workflow, whether you're leading a team of 5 or 500.

Reconciling WordPress and Code Quality: it's actually easy! en fr

When I announced to my friends in Tech that I was joining a WordPress company, many told me I was giving up on quality, developer experience, and state-of-the-art practices. Somehow, the WordPress ecosystem is often viewed as non qualitative and without best practices, yet it is said to be used on 45% of websites, so it is hard to ignore for PHP and Web developers.

While it is true some are open source, the community is now well-equipped to build qualitative codebases. Let's dive together into some best practices you can start applying immediately to take your WordPress development workflows to the next level:
- static code analysis with PHPCS & PHPStan for WordPress,
- built-in tests with PHP Unit for WordPress,
- Usual pitfalls for WordPress plugins/themes and open-source ready-to-use solutions against them,
- Plugin development framework.

Tested & approved by WP Media developers, supporting well-known WordPress plugins like WP Rocket & Imagify!

Réconcilier WordPress et la qualité: c'est possible. en fr

Lorsque j’ai annoncé à mes amis développeurs que je rejoignais une entreprise WordPress, beaucoup m’ont dit que j’abandonnais la qualité, la DX et les "best practices". Et pourtant WordPress est utilisé sur 45 % des sites web ; difficile de l'ignorer !

Bien qu’il soit vrai que certains sont open source, la communauté est maintenant bien équipée pour construire des bases de code qualitatives. Plongeons ensemble dans quelques bonnes pratiques que vous pouvez commencer à appliquer immédiatement pour amener vos flux de travail de développement WordPress au niveau supérieur :

analyse de code statique avec PHPCS & PHPStan pour WordPress,
tests intégrés avec PHP Unit pour WordPress,
pièges habituels pour les plugins/thèmes WordPress et solutions prêtes à l’emploi open source contre eux,
cadre de développement de plugins.
Testé et approuvé par les développeurs de WP Media, soutenant des plugins WordPress bien connus comme WP Rocket & Imagify !

Observability in practice, so that issues have nowhere to hide en fr

"I can't reproduce it," "we'll need to add logs," "we can't test that in staging," "it seems to have been broken for a while," "it works locally," ...
If you hear these phrases regularly, this talk is for you.
If you often feel like you're a step behind on bugs, this talk is also for you.

During this talk, I introduce the concept of observability and how it can help developers always stay ahead, increase application quality, and thus have more time to add value!
I then present the concrete methods and tools we have implemented at WP Media to maintain and monitor our products, which are used on over 4 million websites, and our services, with daily production deployments and several thousand requests per second; all managed by only a dozen developers.

I briefly revisit the basics, but enhanced:
- Standardized logs that anyone can add,
- On-demand test environments

And I discuss more advanced methods and tools to simplify their implementation:
- Error & Performance tracking, Tracing, and technical alerts with Sentry
- Functional alerts and data observability with Metabase
- Canary releases
- Shadow releases
- Health Probes

If these techniques are unfamiliar to you, if you have difficulty implementing them, or if you simply want a refresher, this talk is a great opportunity to hear about practical experiences and tips on observability!

Target audience:
This talk is designed mostly for developers, product owners, scrum masters, team leaders, and engineering managers with a first experience in running and maintaining a backend service, especially in small/mid-size companies.

More information:
https://mathieulamiot.com/talk/observability-in-practice/

L'observabilité en pratique, pour que les problèmes n'aient nulle part où se cacher en fr

"je n'arrive pas à reproduire", "il va falloir ajouter des logs", "on ne peut pas tester ça en staging", "Ca semble casser depuis longtemps", "Ca fonctionne en local", ...
Si vous entendez ça régulièrement, cette conférence est faite pour vous.
Si vous avez souvent l'impression d'avoir un temps de retard sur les bugs, cette conférence est aussi faite pour vous.

Durant ce talk, j'introduis la notion d'observabilité et comment elle peut aider les développeurs à toujours avoir un temps d'avance, à augmenter la qualité des applications et donc, à avoir plus de temps pour ajouter de la valeur !
Je présente ensuite les méthodes concrètes et les outils que nous avons mis en place à WP Media pour maintenir et observer nos produits, utilisés sur plus de 4 millions de sites web et nos services avec des mises en production chaque jour et plusieurs milliers de requêtes par secondes ; avec seulement une dizaine de développeurs.

Je revisite brièvement les basiques, sous stéroïdes:
- Des logs standardisés que n'importe qui peut ajouter,
- Environnements de tests à la demande
Et je discute de méthodes plus avancées et des outils pour en simplifier la mise en place:
- Error & Performance tracking, Tracing et alertes techniques avec Sentry
- Alertes fonctionnelles et data observability avec Metabase
- Canary releases
- Shadow releases
- Health Probes

Si ces techniques ne vous parlent pas, si vous avez des difficultés à les mettre en place, ou si vous souhaitez simplement vous rafraichir la mémoire, ce talk est une bonne occasion d'écouter un retour d'expérience et des conseils pratiques sur l'observabilité !

Auditoire
Cette conférence s'adresse principalement à des développeurs, product owners, team leads et engineering managers avec une première expérience de maintenance d'un service backend.

Plus de détails:
https://mathieulamiot.com/talk/observability-in-practice/

Empowering teams: Navigating complexity for engineering leaders en fr

Who has not seen a team constantly fixing bugs but still facing more bugs? A team that struggles to release new features quickly, that doesn't have time to maintain its stack or codebases, and even less time to experiment with new technologies? Maybe this is your current situation?

We often talk about "technical debt" as if it were inevitable. "It's old code. Every change is time consuming, and it breaks with every release." Meanwhile, we see startups releasing features every week: "It's easy for them; they don't have any legacy."

Is it really inevitable? I like to believe it's not. I joined WP Media in 2023, at a time when the release pace was slowing down, each version was causing fear among the Product and QA teams, and developers were spending more time investigating bugs and finding the right approach rather than adding value to our products. Far from having solved all the problems, the teams have significantly reversed the trend thanks to a few principles and ideas that can be applied (almost) anywhere:
- optimized feedback loops in Tech team workflows,
- tactics to foster ownership and teamwork,
- the role of experts in teams,
- the self-service approach,
- the "diamond team" approach.

Come and discover this feedback and some proposals that might (or might not) help to unlock your team!

Target audience:
This talk is mostly designed for developers, product owners, scrum masters, team leads and engineering managers. More senior tech profiles can also benefit from the feedbacks shared in this talk.

More information:
https://mathieulamiot.com/empowering-teams-navigating-complexity-for-engineering-leaders/

Power to the devs: mieux gérer la complexité dans la Tech en fr

Vous avez surement déjà vu une équipe qui enchaine les corrections de bugs, et qui continue d'avoir des bugs ; qui n'arrive pas sortir de nouvelles features rapidemenent, qui n'a pas le temps de maintenir sa stack ni ses codebases, et encore moins le temps d'expérimenter avec des nouvelles technos. C'est peut-être votre cas actuellement ?
On parle souvent de "dette technique", comme d'une fatalité. "C'est du vieux code. Tout prend du temps dessus et ça pète à chaque release". Pendant ce temps, on voit de start-ups sortir des features chaque semaines : "C'est facile pour eux, ils n'ont pas de legacy".

Est-ce vraiment une fatalité ? J'aime croire que non : J'ai rejoins WP Media en 2023, alors que le rythme de release ralentissait, que chaque version faisait peur à l'équipe Produit et aux QA Engineer, et que les développeurs passaient plus de temps à investiguer les bugs et à trouver une bonne approche plutôt qu'à ajouter de la valeur à nos produits. Loin d'avoir réglé tout les problèmes, les équipes ont bien inversées la tendance grâce à quelques principes et idées qui peuvent s'appliquer (presque) partout, pour dépasser le modèle Agile:
- feedback loops optimisées pour les Workflow Tech,
- stratégies pour favoriser "l'ownership" et la collaboration,
- le rôle d'expert en équipe,
- l'approche "self-service",
- l'approche "diamond team".

Venez découvrir ce retour d'experience et quelques propositions bonnes à prendre (ou pas) pour tenter de débloquer votre équipe !

Auditoire
Cette conférence s'adresse principalement à des développeurs, product owners, scrum masters, team leads et engineering managers. Des profils techs plus seniors peuvent aussi bénéficier du partage d'expérience de cette conférence.

Plus d'information:
https://mathieulamiot.com/empowering-teams-navigating-complexity-for-engineering-leaders/

When Users Need Developers: Escalation Workflows for WordPress Products en fr

You've launched your WordPress product and as your user base grows, so does the complexity of support requests. Previously straightforward configuration problems have evolved into complex plugin conflicts, cache edge situations, and theme compatibility issues. Support-to-developer collaboration is essential in an ecosystem with over 60,000 plugins - yet without the right processes, it often leads to frustrated developers, overwhelmed support teams, and waiting customers.

As VP of Engineering at WP Media and RankMath, I'll share battle-tested strategies that transformed our support-to-engineering workflow:
- Implementing structured debugging protocols with automated environment analysis;
- Creating a knowledge transfer system that empowers support teams to handle technical challenges;
- Establishing clear escalation criteria to balance urgent user needs with development focus;
- Developing technical documentation that turns complex investigations into reusable guides.

You'll leave with practical templates and workflows that scale from individual plugin businesses to enterprise WordPress operations, transforming support escalations from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage.

L'Escalade Maîtrisée : Quand Support et Développeurs Collaborent sur WordPress en fr

Vous avez lancé votre produit WordPress et à mesure que votre base d'utilisateurs grandit, la complexité des demandes de support augmente. Ce qui commençait par de simples problèmes de configuration implique maintenant des conflits complexes entre plugins, des cas particuliers de cache et des défis de compatibilité avec les thèmes. Dans un écosystème de plus de 60 000 plugins, la collaboration support-développeurs devient cruciale - pourtant, sans les bons processus, elle mène souvent à des développeurs frustrés, des équipes support débordées et des clients en attente.

En tant que VP Engineering chez WP Media et RankMath, je partagerai les stratégies qui ont transformé notre workflow support-engineering :
- Mise en place de processus de debugging structurés avec analyse automatisée des environnements;
- Création d'une base de connaissances qui autonomise les équipes support face aux défis techniques;
- Établissement de critères d'escalade clairs pour équilibrer urgences utilisateurs et focus développement;
- Développement d'une documentation technique qui transforme les investigations complexes en guides réutilisables

Vous repartirez avec des modèles et des workflows pratiques qui s'adaptent des entreprises individuelles aux opérations WordPress d'entreprise, transformant les escalades support d'un goulot d'étranglement en avantage compétitif.

From Reactive to Proactive: Modern Observability for WordPress at Scale en

'It works on my machine', 'We can't test that in staging', 'It seems to have been broken for a while'... If these phrases sound painfully familiar, this talk is for you.
As VP of Engineering at both WP Media (WP Rocket) and RankMath, I've transformed how our teams handle technical challenges. I'll show you how modern observability turns reactive firefighting into proactive problem-solving, drawing from our experience maintaining some of WordPress's most popular plugins.
You'll discover:
How to implement error monitoring platforms like Sentry to catch issues before users do
Using Metabase for data-driven insights to proactively observe and understand issues
Visual regression testing with BackstopJS to prevent UI breaks
Building and automating an evolving knowledge base that scales with your user growth
Real-world examples of how these tools helped our teams manage daily deployments effectively
Whether you're a plugin/theme developer or managing WordPress sites at scale, you'll learn practical approaches to spend more time building features instead of fixing bugs.

AI for Engineering Leaders: Amplifying Leadership Impact en

Are you convinced that AI won’t replace developers, but developers using AI will replace those who don’t? Then, what about Engineering leaders? We spend countless hours gathering context for meetings, reviewing past interactions, and staying current with industry trends – time that could be better spent on strategic thinking and team development.
Drawing from my experience as VP of Engineering, managing multiple distributed teams across multiple stacks, projects, products, and companies, I reflect on how AI tools help me improve my efficiency as a leader.
Through concrete examples and experienced situations, we'll explore how to use AI to improve meeting preparation, offer new approaches to team challenges, gain insights about technical obstacles, and maintain deep context across projects. After months of experiments, I am convinced that AI enhanced my impact in 1:1 meetings, priority planning, technical reviews, and all interactions with my teams and peers.
You'll get explicit examples of tools and workflows leveraging RAG-powered assistants that you can use with traditional leadership practices to help you make better-informed decisions and spend more time on what matters: leading teams and driving impact.
Coding is not the only area in Tech where AI can help, let's explore AI-augmented leadership!