close
WordPress.org
Get WordPress

Profiles

BERJAYA

Matt Cohen

Founder and Fractional CTO at MDC Consulting

@mattyza South Africa joined Jun 2009

mattcohen.co github.com/mattyza
    Languages af

    Bio

    I’m a technologist who loves pushing the limits of what’s possible with technology. Early at WooThemes and WooCommerce, I was instrumental in the creation of the WooCommerce ecosystem, and pushed the boundaries of what’s possible with WordPress. Today, I work with startups, pushing technology to the limits to help their businesses move the needle.

    Interests

    eCommerce, Product Management, Product Design and Scoping, Plugin Development, Theme Architecture, Guitars, Punk Rock, Reggae, Drumming, Wine Tasting.

    WordPress Origin Story

    I’ve always loved the web, and code. Mostly, I’ve loved tinkering and “making things work”. After tinkering with HTML 4 in the pre-CSS days during Middle School, I found an interest in PHP and various content management systems. How they worked excited me.

    After school, I launched a community website for my local underground music scene, which was the social network for our community at the time. During this time, I tinkered with various content management systems, and discovered WordPress. Using WordPress for my personal blog, I quickly fell in love (this was around WordPress 2.6), and began using WordPress professionally. At that point, I knew I wanted to be a WordPress developer.

    This quickly evolved into building WordPress-powered websites, tinkering with themes and plugins, and then working at WooThemes as the 8th team member and then focused on WooCommerce, building themes and plugins used across the world and building the livelihoods of web citizens worldwide.

    The rest, as they say, is history.

    Badges

    CODE
    1 badge
    Plugin Developer
    CONTENT
    1 badge
    Photo Contributor '23
    COMMUNITY
    2 badges
    WordCamp Organizer '19 WordCamp Speaker '14
    POLYGLOTS
    1 badge
    Translation Contributor '16

    Current Job

    Founder and Fractional CTO
    Jul 2023 – Present
    MDC Consulting
    I partner with founders in startups and scale-ups, using technology to move the needle.

    Key Accomplishments

    The first Chief Product & Technology Officer at WooCommerce. I built the early product, design, and engineering organization across WooThemes, WooCommerce, and Sensei.
    Built WooSidebars, the first ever WordPress plugin to customize groups of widgets in a sidebar for any theme, without needing to customize the theme code.
    I built the base code for what became WooCommerce\'s Settings API, before WooCommerce launched to the world.

    Recent impact

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

    Last 30 days
    0contributions
    high0
    medium0
    score0
    Last 90 days
    0contributions
    high0
    medium0
    score0
    Last 12 months
    0contributions
    high0
    medium0
    score0

    Contributions

    Type
    November 2024
    Nov 14 Thu · 13:57
    Meta med
    Completed the course How decisions are made in the WordPress project on learn.wordpress.org
    May 2024
    May 16 Thu · 08:42
    Meta high
    Wrote a new post, Call for Speakers, on the site WordCamp Cape Town 2024:
    We're looking for speakers to come and share their knowledge at this year's WordCamp Cape…
    April 2024
    Apr 22 Mon · 09:24
    Meta high
    Joined the organizing team for WordCamp Cape Town 2024
    Apr 03 Wed · 17:15
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Is the plugin support abandoned?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi @sirrahikkala. I've tested and can confirm that WooSidebars is working with WordPress 6.5. I've…
    July 2022
    Jul 26 Tue · 09:55
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Very Slow SQL When WP_Query->get_posts() is Executed, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    > What tasks pending? I dont see what you’re talking about. If there are tasks…
    Jul 26 Tue · 07:52
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Very Slow SQL When WP_Query->get_posts() is Executed, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi @edat - It looks like there may be several tasks pending in the task…
    March 2022
    Mar 11 Fri · 13:21
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to PHP 8.0 Error, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi @itguysconsulting , Thank you for reporting this. Version 1.4.6 (deployed today) of WooSidebars adds…
    Mar 11 Fri · 13:20
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Not working with PHP 8, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi @daliborpuljiz , Thank you for reporting this. Version 1.4.6 and higher of WooSidebars adds…
    Mar 11 Fri · 11:21
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Missing Advanced Settings, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi @tomcoady, Version 1.4.6 of WooSidebars resolves the PHP 8 compatibility issue reported. Thanks for…
    Mar 11 Fri · 11:19
    Forums med
    Posted a reply to Error with PHP 8.0, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi @milouze @mindas22, Version 1.4.6 of WooSidebars resolves this issue by updating the sprintf modifier…