About the Project
The WordPress project is run by a core leadership team and led by co-founder and lead developer Matt Mullenweg. The team governs all aspects of the project, including core development, WordPress.org, and community initiatives.
Trusted contributors and core developers earn their stripes on more than their abilities and actions. Leadership roles are earned on the basis of professionalism, personality, attitude, and respect among peers.
The best contributors naturally respect and subscribe to the project’s core philosophies. A lack of a personal agenda is paramount: we’re all a part of the same community and we all share common goals. This doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion – far from it. The best contributors can balance their opinions with the goals of the project and the perspectives of both users and developers. Offering consistently good suggestions, demonstrating a strong ability to collaborate with others, and being able to accept (and provide) feedback are all important.
You can identify these standards in some of our best core contributors, and that’s why they have strong influence over the project. Final decisions are made by the core team, which has evolved over the life of the project based on merit.
Community Leadership
The WordPress community is led via two main avenues: the Internal Leads and the Community Volunteers. In many areas, such as UI and Support, the Community Leads are the driving force.
The WordPress Core Team
The WordPress project is led by the core leadership team, which consists of WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, five lead developers, and a number of core developers.
The lead developers are Helen Hou-Sandi, Dion Hulse, Mark Jaquith, Andrew Nacin, and Andrew Ozz. These developers have final authority on technical decisions, and lead architecture discussions and implementation efforts.
Committers
Current committers include:
Robert Anderson, Michael Arestad, Joen Asmussen, Felix Arntz, Marin Atanasov, Jean-Baptiste Audras, Daniel Bachhuber, Rachel Baker, David Baumwald, Ian Belanger, Riad Benguella, Pascal Birchler, Sergey Biryukov, John Blackbourn, Carlos Bravo, Isabel Brison, Anthony Burchell, Aaron D. Campbell, Marco Ciampini, Kelly Choyce-Dwan, Allan Cole, Alex Concha, Jorge Costa, Michal Czaplinski, Glen Davies, Jonathan Desrosiers, Ramon Dodd, Joe Dolson, Andrei Draganescu, Ian Dunn, Ben Dwyer, Darren Ethier, Jeremy Felt, Andrea Fercia, Miguel Fonseca, Laurel Fulford, Herre Groen, Aki Hamano, Kai Hao, Jonny Harris, Luis Herranz, Timothy Jacobs, John James Jacoby, Drew Jaynes, Marius Jensen, Aaron Jorbin, Fabian Kägy, James Koster, Tammie Lister, George Mamadashvili, André Maneiro, Joe McGill, Lena Morita, Tonya Mork, Sarah Norris, Carolina Nymark, Jeff Ong, William Patton, Brandon Payton, Gary Pendergast, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Omar Reiss, Bernhard Reiter, Daniel Richards, Aaron Robertshaw, Weston Ruter, Dominik Schilling, Kira Schroder, Andrew Serong, Alex Shiels, Adam Silverstein, David Smith, Dennis Snell, Allen Snook, Jake Spurlock, Ari Stathopoulos, Colin Stewart, Jon Surrell, Rich Tabor, Anton Timmermans, Nik Tsekouras, Ella Van Durpe, Matias Ventura, K. Adam White, Peter Wilson, Adam Zieliński, and Grzegorz Ziółkowski.
Other contributing developers include:
Michael Adams, Nikolay Bachiyski, Jon Cave, Mel Choyce-Dwan, Andrew Duthie, Boone B. Gorges, Joe Hoyle, David A. Kennedy, Daryl Koopersmith, Konstantin Kovshenin, Eric Lewis, Matthew Riley MacPherson, Matt Miklic, Ryan McCue, James Nylen, Konstantin Obenland, Joseph Scott, Ian Stewart, Andy Skelton, Scott Taylor, Peter Westwood, Lance Willett, and Samuel Wood.
Note that the most current list of committers can be viewed in code and on GitHub.
Core Contributors
The core and contributing developers serve as guides for WordPress development. With every version, hundreds of developers contribute code to WordPress. These core contributors are volunteers who contribute to the core codebase in some way. All it takes is a single patch to make a difference.
Team Reps
Since anyone who is an active contributor on a team can be elected as team rep, team reps will often have different levels of familiarity with other areas of the project, communication protocols, and general processes. To get everyone’s expectations in the same place, the “job description” for team reps is located on Make/Updates.
@francina, @audrasjb and @benjamin_zekavica are the current Core Team Reps for 2025. Team Rep elections happen every year and follow a specific process that includes nominations, voting, and announcing the new reps.
UX and Design
The design team is made up of core contributors who work on the design and user interface of WordPress.
Support
The support forums are run by a team of volunteer moderators who remove spam, handle disputes, and generally keep the peace. They are led primarily by a self-appointed team leader and everyone is encouraged to jump in.
Documentation
The Documentation team is responsible for all things documentation, including HelpHub (end-users documentation), DevHub (developer-oriented documentation), handbooks, admin help, inline docs, and other general wordsmithing across the WordPress project.
This handbook and HelpHub/DevHub are the primary sources of information for learning how to develop, improve, and troubleshoot WordPress. These resources are curated by a group of volunteers. Everyone is welcome to contribute.
Mobile
The WordPress mobile applications are open source software, just like the project. There are two applications currently for iOS and Android. Both apps are hosted on GitHub where anyone can contribute.
Theme Reviewers
Themes submitted to the WordPress Themes Directory are reviewed by a team of volunteers to ensure compliance with the WordPress.org theme guidelines. The team is made up of community leaders and contributors who work together on developing standards and reviewing themes.
Plugin Reviewers
Plugins submitted to the WordPress Plugins Directory are reviewed by a team of volunteers to ensure they meet WordPress.org guidelines before being included in the plugin directory.
Community Blogs and Communication
WordPress core development updates and discussion from the teams above happen on the Make WordPress blogs. You can also follow core development by joining the #core channel on the project’s Slack team, which is open for anyone to join. Dedicated channels are set up for various WordPress core components and community initiatives. A more specific breakdown of the WordPress project’s communication channels is available in the Communication section of the Core Handbook.
