What’s up, friends? 🤘 I’m Mitch

At A Glance: Engineering Leader • WordPress Developer • Speaker & Teacher • Unapologetic Punk

I’m Mitch Canter – a Director of Engineering, WordPress developer, and technology educator based in Nashville, TN.

For over two decades I’ve built WordPress-powered solutions for the web: everything from personal blogs, enterprise platforms serving millions, and a lot of stuff in between. But… somewhere along the way the work changed. I stopped being the person shipping the code and became the person responsible for the people shipping it.

That turned out to be a completely different job. This page is mostly about that job.

MY SCOPE – What Do I Actually DO?

I lead engineering at WebDevStudios, where I’m responsible for multiple cross-functional teams building WordPress at enterprise scale. My objective: hire them, grow them, and stand between them and the chaos.

The role is part delivery, part strategy, and a surprising amount of “sitting with someone while they figure out what they actually want to say/do.” I own our strategy process, how we scope work, how we ship it, and whether the people doing it are getting better – and still want to be here in a year (or longer).

HOW I LEAD.

I got promoted into management the way most engineers do: I was good at the job, so they gave me a different job. I never understood, that. Still, nobody hands you a manual for that part.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Technology is the easy part. I’ve never had a project fail because of a framework choice. I’ve had plenty go sideways because two engineers had different ideas about what “done” meant and nobody said it out loud.
• Candor beats comfort. Being vague to avoid an awkward conversation helps no one. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – and the price is usually paid for by someone with less authority than you.
• My job is to be the “tank“. In agency work, client pressure mounts fast. Part of my job is standing in the way and blocking any chaos that comes toward my team.
• I don’t have the magic bullet. Anyone selling you a leadership framework that “works every time” hasn’t managed enough people. That’s not to say I won’t eventually have a course or book or something, but my philosophy is simple: I try to pay attention, stay honest, and fix it faster / do better next time.

My ORIGIN STORY – How Did I Get Here?

I started where a lot of us did: a personal blog, a cheap domain, and a WordPress installation. I was in college, writing about my ridiculous job as the yearbook’s graphics editor. It took hold and never let go.

Since then:

• I’ve built SolarStream at StreamerSquare (a full streaming-education SaaS platform, taken from idea to launch) and worked at TechnologyAdvice, which is where I learned that shipping a product and shipping a project are not remotely the same discipline.
• At Full Focus and Vanderbilt University, I made sure what we built was WordPress-ready and actually met web, accessibility, and marketing standards. That meant all the nuts and bolts, not just the parts that were fun.

Now I’m at WebDevStudios, doing the version of this work I like best: making the teams good, so the work is good.

OFF THE CLOCK…

I stream on Twitch, make silly gaming videos on YouTube, play an unreasonable amount of Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, and I’m a longtime St. Jude Ambassador. I love rock and metal music, and I’m an Eldritch punk in spirit.

Not pictured: my amazing wife, awesome kids, and the outdoorsy hiking that keeps me from being glued to a screen 24/7.

My ethos: Kindness. Justice. Anarchy. 🤘

Skills (that pay the bills)

Leading

• People management & career growth
• Hiring, onboarding, and team structure
• Mentoring engineers into senior and lead roles
• Delivery & project management
• Agile / Scrum in a client-services context
• Technical writing & documentation
• Stakeholder and client communication

Building

• WordPress: theme development, custom plugins, block/Gutenberg architecture, WooCommerce
• Application development & REST API integration
• PHP, JavaScript, React, Vue.js, MySQL
• DevOps: server & DNS management, CI/CD pipelines, workflow automation
• UX/UI principles