July 31, 2024
Who is Marius Vetrici?
Marius Vetrici is an experienced entrepreneur and WordPress expert, and known for being the founder of WPRiders, one of the most well-known agencies specializing in WordPress development. He has a PhD in Business Informatics and, through his agency, founded in 2014, has worked on over 1,000 WordPress projects.
Before founding WPRiders, Marius ran a software company for ten years with .NET, Document Management Platforms, and Inventory Management Software as their work technologies. He became interested in WordPress in 2008 due to its open-source nature and extensive plugin ecosystem .
WPRiders deals with a variety of services: custom WordPress plugin development, maintenance, and strategic consulting. The agency is known for its scientific approach to project management, backed by Marius’s long research in software project estimation and risk management.
Marius Vetrici says that the key is how you manage client expectations, go thorough preparation, and strategic selection in order to ensure quality in service delivery. Marius combines other tools for project management, like Asana, with Harvest Forecast for workload planning in running his business.
Furthermore, Marius believes in theamate grasping of knowledge and mentorship within the WordPress community; he frequently contributes to discussions, sharing his insights at places like Codeable and WordCamps.
1. What key skills and qualities do successful WordPress professionals possess, and how can job seekers develop or demonstrate these traits?
Marius Vetrici:
Good communication skills is the #1 on my list. The digital world we are moving in encourages us and at times requires us to communicate remotely and sometimes even asynchronously. Therefore, communication skills are even more important than before. And by this, I mean
- the ability to set aside preconceived judgments. When you read a message you dislike or don’t understand, before reacting, ask more questions and try to understand what is the other person seeing and what made them say or write that thing.
- Ability to listen very well: listen to both facts as well as the emotions of the other party. If you sense something, label it. E.g.: “I feel there’s a bit of tension when we talk about this part of the project. Is there anything of concern here?” I also encourage you to read the Non-violent Communication book and/or listen to the Empathic Listening First Aid course.
- Expectation setting: every human being, consciously or unconsciously, expects things to develop in a certain way while they work with you. This is based on past similar experiences or other events that happened in their lives. By being aware of this and by proactively communicating how are things going to unfold, you will calm down a bit of their subconscious mind and this will result in an overall better experience for them.
To demonstrate those in an interview, you have to act as such: pause, analyze, listen, ask questions, and use your critical thinking.
Then, you need to be good at sales, whether you are a freelancer, employee or company owner. As human beings, you have to sell all the time: selling to your children a healthier desert, a different vacation to your spouse, or a certain approach to the WordPress project to your clients. So, practice selling, go to networking events such as Business Networking International, and get good at it.
Next, learn to be a good software developer and keep learning to remain good. To be successful, you need to be different and better than other developers at something that customers or employers want from you. Learn to deliver stuff that is in demand and that other devs have a hard way delivering. Some of the best developers I met, learn in a very interesting way: they decide to build something specific (like a plugin for X, or an integration for Y) and then they learn and work to build that thing. Then they pick another challenge like this one and keep pushing. So, keep pushing.
2. Can you share a personal or professional setback you faced in your WordPress career, and how you overcame it? What lessons did you learn from that experience?
Marius Vetrici:
The most painful thing for me was when I had to work 5x more the time that I’ve estimated for a maintenance and fixes project. The code was written by a bunch of former developers, each having different styles, and since I gave a fixed point estimate for the project, I had to deliver on this. For me, it was a matter of personal values to deliver on the promise, to treat others as I’d like to be treated.
Ever since this happened, I decided to work on fixed-priced estimates only for projects I built from scratch. For example, if this is a website or a plugin that I’m building anew, then I will provide an estimate I’ll stick to. However, if this is a preexisting project I have to work on, I would provide a ballpark estimate and then I’d bill the customer on a time and materials basis.
3. What advice do you have for job seekers who feel discouraged or overwhelmed during their job search? How can they stay motivated and maintain a positive mindset?
Marius Vetrici:
Start by remembering that this shall pass too. All things come and go, which means, you’ll eventually find your way and find a job. Just be patient and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
More specifically, I encourage you to:
- take small steps each day, like, applying to 5 jobs each day, for the next 3 weeks.
- get a person to talk to, to vent yourself: a friend, a family member, or even a psychologist!
- get in touch with recruiters and ask how you can improve your CV and resume
- ask for feedback in case you get a refusal for a job application; actually, some of the employers will provide you with answers that will increase your odds with further applications.
4. How can job seekers differentiate themselves in a competitive job market? Are there any unique approaches or strategies that you recommend?
Marius Vetrici:
First, you need to differentiate at something your customers value and want. If you only code your projects using your left hand, fine, you are indeed different, but is this of value to your customer?
Therefore, try to understand what your customers want. And I’ll tell you, they want:
- good communication – listen well; set their expectations
- be dependable – say what you do and do what you say
- be quick and efficient – be the master of your craft
- deliver high-quality websites or plugins – make them pixel-perfect, make them look good
Lastly, go ahead and ask your customers: what do they value, what’s important to them in a collaboration like this? And focus on delivering that.
5. What are the emerging trends or areas of growth in the WordPress industry, and how can job seekers align themselves with these opportunities?
Marius Vetrici:
I think AI will change the face of software development.
Oh, no, software developers will not go anywhere, they are here to stay.
Instead, I think there will be completely new programming languages with new paradigms that the developer will use to create software by describing it in a similar way you are now using ChatGPT and AI.
Maybe it’ll be more visual, maybe we’ll have higher-level programming concepts than we do have today.
To align with this, just play around with ChatGPT, Gemini, and ClaudeAI. Try different AI tools, sign up to a newsletter on AI that you read once a week.
Thanks, Marius, for this awesome interview! We miss you here, in Romania! ????
You can find Marius on LinkedIn and X.
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