WordPress runs on the work of volunteers, and joining that effort is more approachable than most people think. You don’t need to write PHP or have years of open-source experience — there’s a role for writers, designers, translators, testers, and organizers alike. Here’s how to get started.
Step 1: Join the WordPress Slack
Nearly all contributor coordination happens on the Making WordPress Slack. You can request an invite at chat.wordpress.org. Once you’re in, you’ll see dozens of channels — one for each Make team (#core, #design, #docs, #polyglots, #support, and so on) plus general channels for newcomers.
A good first move is posting in #core-restapi, #docs, or whichever team matches your interest, and introducing yourself. Contributors are generally welcoming to newcomers who show up with curiosity rather than demands.
Step 2: Pick a Team That Matches Your Skills
You don’t need to touch code to contribute meaningfully. Consider:
- Writers/editors → Docs team (writing and updating documentation) or Marketing team (blog posts, newsletters)
- Designers → Design team (mockups, prototyping, user testing for the admin interface)
- Multilingual speakers → Polyglots team (translating WordPress core, themes, and plugins)
- Developers → Core, Themes, or Plugins review teams
- People-people → Community team (organizing WordCamps and local meetups)
- Testers → Any team; most release cycles have open calls for testing beta builds
Step 3: Attend a Team Meeting
Each team holds a weekly or biweekly meeting in Slack, usually text-based and lasting 30–60 minutes. Meeting times and agendas are posted in advance on that team’s Make blog. Lurking in your first meeting is completely normal — you’ll get a feel for how decisions get made and who’s working on what.
Step 4: Find a “Good First” Task
Several teams tag beginner-friendly tickets:
- Core uses Trac tickets tagged “good first bug”
- Docs often has a running list of pages that need updates
- Polyglots has translation queues organized by locale and priority
Starting small — fixing a typo in documentation, testing a beta release, translating a handful of strings — is the fastest way to learn the workflow without getting overwhelmed.
Step 5: Show Up Consistently
Open-source contribution rewards consistency more than intensity. Contributors who show up to meetings regularly, follow through on small tasks, and communicate clearly tend to get pulled into more responsibility over time — including, eventually, “team rep” roles that help set the team’s direction each WordPress release cycle.
A Few Tips
- Credit matters. WordPress tracks contributor credits per release, and consistent contributors get their names listed in the About page of WordPress itself.
- Contributor Day at WordCamps is one of the best ways to get hands-on mentorship — experienced contributors are there specifically to help newcomers make their first contribution in person.
- Patience helps. Because it’s a volunteer-driven project, review cycles can be slower than in a paid job. That’s normal, not a sign you’re doing something wrong.
Want a third article — maybe on WordPress release cycles, the Core/Gutenberg relationship, or how the plugin review process works?
Written by Hassan, founder and editor of NTX Magazine — an independent news and biography publication. Every article is researched and cross-checked against multiple public sources before publishing; see our Sourcing Standards page for details.