Most WordPress engineers ship solid work but still find themselves excluded from the early project conversations and the decisions that matter most: timelines, scope, budget, and long-term platform direction. And more than that, a commercial team excluding engineers from the early stages of deal making is missing out on a lot of opportunities to impact both the successful closing of a deal and the project delivery.
At enterprise scale, technical work is constantly evaluated through commercial lenses:
– Is it reducing risk?
– Is it saving money?
– Is it defensible internally?
In this talk, Human Made Senior Web Engineer Rufaro Madamombe shares lessons from his journey. From being a shy quiet consultant verifying scope on client calls to having a significant impact on selling enterprise WordPress platforms to Human Made customers like Standard Chartered, Wikimedia, Skyscanner and Harvard Gazette. Rufaro will walk you through the steps to take for you to get there yourself.
Because technical excellence alone doesn’t secure buy-in, context does.
You will learn how to frame performance improvements, migration choices, and infrastructure work in the language enterprise stakeholders actually use. This isn’t just about selling a thing, it’s about making sure good engineering is understood, prioritised, and trusted.
If you can’t explain your WordPress work in terms of revenue, risk, or cost, someone else will, this talk will help you to get ahead of the curve.
Key Takeaways
For management and leaders:
– Why enterprise WordPress work gets judged on revenue, risk, and cost.
– How embedding engineers in commercial conversations improves win rates.
– How early engineering input reduces delivery risk.
For engineers:
– Why commercial thinking is a core engineering skill.
– How to explain technical decisions in business terms.
– How to gain influence earlier in projects.
– Real examples of reframing technical work as business value.