The Twists and Turns to Becoming a WooCommerce Developer

Abha: Hello, and we have a very special guest joining us for our July episode all the way from Spain. Welcome Carmen Maymo.

Carmen: Thank you so much for having me.

Abha: How are you today on this very, very hot day?

Carmen: Well, I have the blinds down, I should and the ventilate fan going crazy, but no, I’m, I have to say, I’m kind of used to the hot. I think all these year of adaptations are helping me somehow, but yeah.

Abha: Well for the people who are joining us today, if you’re listening to it in sunny July, which it is in parts of Europe or later in the year, I’m Abha Thakor, and we are going to be talking to Carmen about her developer story and her passion for building. Carmen is one of the very few people I know who can make payments sound exciting and how you want to build them. And I wasn’t as excited before I spoke to her about it. And now I just want to build payment gateways into every WooCommerce product that I deal with.

So Carmen, we’re going to, because our show is all about the stories of the builders behind Woo, we’re going to go back and look a little about how you got to this point. And today, you’re a developer for one of the biggest WordPress agencies in the world, and that must be quite exciting. And, but also I know there are some very, very interesting backgrounds before you took this big leap into development. So I’m going to take you back there so you can tell our listeners all about the different paths that you can take to be a developer. Are you game?

Carmen: Yeah, no, I was while you were talking, I was like, “Yeah, it’s true.” Okay. How back can I go? It is that twisting road, but yeah. I’m ready.

Abha: That’s good. And I think that the thing is, as people listening to this, that the one thing we are wanting to show with this show is that you don’t have to go a very straight route towards being developer. You can take lots of different routes and you can do that at any time in your life, which is, which really is something very special.

So Carmen, now that you’re in the hot seat, let’s start on your journey. So you grew up in Spain.

Carmen: Yeah. Valencia.

First an artist, then working in tech

Abha: And in Valencia. And as a young person, did you have any thought about working in tech later in your life?

Carmen: Oy, no. I was an artist. I was going to be an art. I was going to write and do cinema and radio, more radio than cinema. And I went for the communication role. I was doing theater. I was doing all kinds of artistic stuff. You can imagine, crazy stuff. And no, nothing. I was not near even the computers or gaming or anything like that. I was more a book person. I don’t know. Music, I was playing clarinet. I was doing all kind of non super tech, but somehow, I guess we will go through it, but somehow from there, then one day, I changed life and it got me here. So yeah, you can start from a very distant point and then finish here. As you said, the path is not always super straight, but yeah. Was interesting. Now the memories of those days, it’s like, “Oh, that is another life really, another life.”

Abha: So Carmen, you talked about music and you’ve talked about being an artist, which we’ll come back to because I’ve done a bit of digging. And what I’ve found is that actually, you’ve used a lot of those skills in what you do now as well. It’s not just that what you learn then and what you practice then hasn’t been useful for what you do now. But to help our listeners understand a little bit about how that transition has worked for you. The skills that you learned as an artist and from playing musical instruments, like the clarinet, what did that give you that has helped you in your role as a developer?

Carmen: So from radio and writing and doing theater, I got that. I needed images and from images, I went to 3D and renderings and stuff, and it was a creative path, I guess. And then someone, when they told me, some musician friends, “Maybe you can do a website,” blah, blah. So in the beginning was that kind environment that had nothing to do with tech that were just asking for a favor and I am a super curious person. So I said, “Yeah, why not?” I’m a bit kamikaze, so I usually say, “Yes,” and then I realize I don’t know how to do it. And then, I just die to try to learn it and make the deadline. That has not changed.

Creativity and being a developer

And so, those skills and those people that I knew led me to learn new things and to enter this path. And nowadays, I think the thing that helps me the most is my communication skills. The fact that I can, when you are in a meeting and you have to convey your idea or make others kind of understand each other what they are saying, sometimes at least in the environment I move that we are all remote from different countries. And the way of talking is kind of different for every person. So this ability to sometimes is the conversation or being a bit of a clown or be, communicate. And I think that helps also. So yeah, kind of side skills that are not directly related to the tech, but are helpful.

Abha: And a lot of developers are, lot of what you call us builders actually started from making sites for things they had a passion about. I think probably one of my first two sites were artist sites and musical sites. And I think my first WooCommerce site was for a group of artists.

Carmen: Oh, right. That’s nice.

Abha: And, it suddenly thinks, “Oh, you can do this and you can help them do this.” And it’s just amazing the transformation that you can do for a creative industry through a platform that you wouldn’t think would be able to do that. So, it’s definitely for the people who’ve not tried WooCommerce for those kind of avenues. And it may also work the other way because you and I have spoken about how working as a WooCommerce developer has also enhanced your creativity.

Carmen: Well, I did not finish the degree. I started a computer science and I did not finish yet the degree when they hired me, when they gave me the chance, and they allowed me to continue. I was super junior and they allowed me to continue learning there. And they told me, “Okay, this is your plugin. This is Molly.” And from now on, this is, this name is going to be repeated a lot, I guess. And I was with other colleagues that were more senior, but somehow, they gave me the chance to develop some features, small things. And in those things, I have so much part, I was like, “How do I do this? Can we do it like this?” And they gave me freedom. They still do. In fact, now I’m in charge of the plugin.

I know it sounds cliche because yeah. But it’s true. We are building things and we have the freedom to build it from thin air. So we can just, it’s not that we had, we are not that’s to, I don’t know, the materials or it’s just lines, but the way you build it in one way or another change a lot of things, and every developer has different solutions. And even reading the others people’s solution is a creative is not literature, but kind of like, “Oh my, this is elegant,” or, “Oh, how can he think of this way of building that? “And yes, I think it’s a creative, in fact, it’s creative because we are building things, even if it’s a gateway, but yeah, the gateways are hot.

Gateway code is pretty

Abha: At WordCamp Europe. I heard you call gateway code as pretty. So, that’s the first time I’ve [inaudible] so it stayed with me and I think, “Okay.” See, now I try and look at code and I think, “Okay, we know code is poetry. We know code is music.” Now, and we know code is elegance, but now we have code as beautiful and pretty. So I like it.

Carmen: It’s true. I mean, it’s evolving. That’s also nice. It’s evolving because WordPress is alive. WooCommerce is alive. And all the plugins that are orbiting around are alive. So all the code that we write has to evolve and it takes from other places you have inspiration. It’s true. You take inspiration from other plugins or you take inspiration from other languages and it transforms and it improves and it gets better and nicer and prettier because the things evolve. Yeah. I think it’s evolving all the time.

Abha: And I think, if you’re starting off as a coder, and I know when I’m talking to people who are starting out or who are moving professions, I often say, “Don’t just use a code editor. That looks really boring.”

You can have code editor that can look visually quite amazing, that can make you easily find the bits that in your code, but also, can make it a much more artistic expression. I know sometimes, I’ve worked through something in different colors and thought, “I’d like a color here.”

Carmen: I cannot, if anything, there is this theme for, I use PhpStorm, and there is this theme from CodelyTV. They are Spanish platform for learning. And they did a beautiful, typography, everything. It has to be nice. I mean, in front of the computer for 10 hours, that it has to be breathable and nice and colorful.

Abha: And I think that’s something quite often that we forget. We forget that actually we can customize what we’re looking at and that actually can make us into more creative things and what we deliver more creative. And I think, we’ve talked in this series with people who have created shops for things like knitting. Your colleague, Robert. I talked to him about knitting often enough, we might actually get it into the show as well. And it turned out it was his best story as well. But, I worked with a developer who was creating a knitting WooCommerce site. And she had the most amazing theme, just like you were saying, and I’d never seen anything like it. But it had it just made you come up with more inspiring, colorful ideas to actually make her WooCommerce shop be even more effective. And I was really surprised by what your theme is and what you’re looking at can make such a difference.

Carmen: I don’t know, but design is important. I mean, when you see a nice typography or when you see… There are things that maybe you don’t have the knowledge, but you perceive it. If a website is well designed and it does what it has to do with the minimal features to do it. And it’s calm. You feel those things. I mean, I am not an expert, but in fact, as I am not an expert, I can just admire good designers, the way they can transform one thing into another. And the feeling they make you feel things is like, again, like in cinema, like in radio, when the thing is when you put thought into it and effort into it, somehow transpires. That’s what I think.

Debugging and dancing

Abha: Which is really true, and I think for anyone who’s listening who’s not tried a different theme on there, or who needs inspiration while building a WooCommerce site, sometimes we all get to that point, don’t we? That we’ve got so far into the build or the plugin, and we are just looking at it and thinking, “I don’t know. I can’t, don’t know where to go,” lacking inspiration. And so if that happens to you, how do you pull your previous learning from cinema, from radio…

Carmen: I dance.

Abha: You dance. Is that what you said?

Carmen: Yeah. I just stop. I take it. I’m stuck many times. I have to debug. There is a problem. Nothing is working. Time is passing. I just cannot do it. So I stop, I put music on and I dance. And sometimes, not all the times, but sometimes that moment of stopping and just putting my head into a completely different place, and yeah, because sometimes I lose perspective of the importance of the pro. I mean, this is important, but yeah, I can do it. This will be solved. I can do it. I just have to be stubborn enough, but now it’s not working. So I just stand up, put music in my headphones, just super loud. And I start dancing like a crazy person, but not even steps or choreography. No. Just like, I’m completely out of my mind. And that works for me, at least.

Abha: That sounds brilliant. And I have this vision now of Moulin Rouge coming to WooCommerce and it will ever forever be in my head every time I think of dance break for Woo. Now I’ve been saying to Bob for ages, we need a Do the Woo dance. He just raises an eyebrow at me. So I think because he can’t tell me otherwise at the moment that Carmen, I think we should choreograph one.

Carmen: Oh my God. No. What I tell you, it’s crazy. I can improv or what you want, but we can improv. We can improv. It depends on the problem. If the problem is super, then you move your arms more. I don’t know.

Abha: Hey, I can see a whole series coming out on this.

Carmen: I’m all for the dance. Yeah.

Abha: Yeah. So look out for that. I think there’s going to be more on that to come. So from dance, which we now know liberates the mind and also helps you focus back on what you’re developing and solve solution, which is great. For some people I know, they use drumsticks and they create a drum pattern.

Carmen: Yeah. Or run.

Abha: Or run. I, as a developer who starts kickboxing.

Carmen: Oh, that’s nice.

Abha: In the middle of a develop, I have yet to figure out if he does that while his clients are still there. So that is my question for him. He’s coming up later in the year so we can ask him on Do the Woo.

Thanks to our Pod Friends Klaviyo and NitroPack

Bringing democratization to commerce

Carmen, can you just tell us a little bit about, you’ve talked about the artistry and how that gets involved in what you create now, but in terms of the plugin that you look after, how does that fit into the WooCommerce space in terms of, as a developer, what you think you can bring to the democratization of commerce?

Carmen: I think these last two years have changed a lot of things. I don’t think before the pandemics, the eCommerce was this huge. We saw that with the plugin, with Molly, was amazing. We went skyrocketing. And one day on the other side I was, and this is a complete maybe since unrelated, but I will get to the point. I was in the physiotherapist’s and she was telling me, after the pandemic, she was telling me, “Don’t know, I’m in this studio, but I would like to do my own. I don’t know. It sounds so difficult.”

And there for me, was that easy. And at some point, I just stand up from the massage, I took a paper and I started, “Now, wait, this is super easy. You just need WordPress, WooCommerce and a gateway. And you start and you can start from zero.” And, “No, but this will cost a lot.” “No, it doesn’t cost anything. You can just start and try your things. Then when you have to grow or something, then you can put more things and you can hire someone.” But the small things, the starting things, the possibility to try, and these kind of plugins, these kind of infrastructures that now we have that allow people to just try. And I was feeling like, “Yeah, I have this knowledge and I should spread it more.” Or the way that I try to collaborate is, every time I see a person, I try to explain them that it is easy that is, and they can try. And a part of the fact that I work for Molly and is open source and that’s nice.

And we accepted that the people come to us and, “Oh, you maybe you can improve it this way,” or “You can improve it that way.” Or they give us even a PR and they are willing to collaborate. That’s amazing, being part of this. I don’t know what you think. Having an idea and pursuing your idea and your project is nice. But sometimes, I feel that if you have an idea, but is similar to an idea that already exists, it’s kind of more efficient to help the idea that is already there and make it improve. So if somehow we, building these plugins are collaborating with WooCommerce and all of us are creating something better, I think that’s also part of a great movement. And I like to be part of it, in fact.

Abha: What a lovely answer. And it is about collaboration. It’s not just in the WordPress space, it’s also in the WooCommerce space. And sometimes people haven’t quite had the chance to experience that. And I think it’s lovely to hear yourself and other developers being able to share, why it’s special for them because it’s not just another platform. It is something very special. So with Molly, you obviously don’t just use one method a payment, you use credit cards, PayPal, bank transfers. And that’s globally and locally and, do all those kind of things with it. And, but that multi currency idea, and working with multi currencies as a dev, was that something that was quite hard to grasp because I know you were born in Spain and lived in Spain, but I think you’re now based in Italy?

The joy of working remote

Carmen: I was in Italy for a time. And now, I’m back in Spain. Yeah. And yeah. And you asked me next year, and I don’t know where I will be.

Abha: Is there the joy of working for a remote company there?

Carmen: Exactly.

Abha: And again, the freedom that working for companies in this space can give as well. Is that life experience as well?

Carmen: Oh my God. Yes. That’s amazing. But answering the question before, the plugin, when I started this plugging has many things and I could not read it all. And working with different currencies, working with interactions with other plugins, the fact that you have to be in touch with other developers saying, “Oh, now you change this. And I have a conflict. What do we do?” And all those conversations. And trying to that, I have to say, I don’t know if I am the luckiest person in the world or what, but every time I encounter another developer from another company or another plugin or everything, they were always super willing to help and change things or tell me how could I move to make things better. And yeah, so far, that’s Woo, I don’t know if that’s an English also a thing, but was nice.

And the plugin is complex. I have also the lack that in my company, we have other gateways and I’ve been in touch with some other projects. So my view of all of the possibilities that you can do a gateway and solve the same problem in different ways, which is super cool because you have the same problems and you solve it in completely different ways. And everything works is well, okay. Maybe this is too enthusiastic…

Abha: No. We are all enthusiastic. We are enthusiastic at Do the Woo. So we make it come to life hopefully. I think one of the expressions that we talked about in preparation for this and at WordCamp Europe, we are talking about how solutions were a bit like having your own fashion show, because you could have this outfit for this solution and you could have this outfit. And I think just thinking about it in a way that is not boring really, but having that imagery to make it come to life. And actually, we are, it’s a shop, it’s a shop window. We are dressing it in many ways is just that we’re doing as recording.

Carmen: Yeah. It is like even in conversations, within the same plugin with other colleagues and saying, “Okay, how do we do this?” Or, and I could say also depends on the day or somethings. There are some days that the solutions are super easy and other days that we are, “No, we are going to build this. And then we will build with that. And we are going to abstract everything,” and yeah. Different days, different people or the same people doing diff… It’s not boring. That’s the good thing. Is not boring. It’s not repetitive and solving problems, different problems is cool.

The opportunity to become a developer with determination

Abha: And of course, this is going back again to your original career, because you studied informatics at university and things originally. And building systems from thin air and that kind of challenge is something that really drove you, but that doesn’t sound that different to actually how you ended up as a developer, but you may not have known that was an opportunity back then.

Carmen: No. Okay. So I started, the first degree was communication. So I was doing radio and stuff. And then, because I like to study, I’m one of those person that likes to study. I don’t want to say properly, but I want the bibliography. So I said, “Then I’m going to go and do the degree.” So after the communication degree, I did the computer science informatics degree and there, to be honest, I did not know if I was going for the website road or I was most interested in databases or mining or things. I’m too curious. That’s my problem that I tend to this person in many, “Oh, this is nice.” “Oh, this is nice.” If you show me another thing, then I would go to that. But in the end, I guess I tried and I liked it.

And I started here at Insight and I liked it. I kind of, I have colleagues from university that say, “No, but WordPress, I don’t know.” And I, “Yeah, it’s fun.” I have different problems every day and we take care of the code. I mean, I am responsible and I’m not only responsible, but it’s personal for me, what I write. And if you kind of, if something goes wrong in the plugin, I feel bad and I have to fix it. Maybe it’s too personal, but yeah, I’m attached to all the code and I did not think when I was studying that I would have an emotional relation with the code, but I kind of have. And when I see others, people work and it’s because I have colleagues that are amazing. You would not imagine.

There are people there that I admire a lot and you read what they do or they explain me, “Look, I found this,” or “Look, I found that.” And I’m like, “Really? This can be done? Okay.” I have this huge list of things that I have to study next that if I keep putting things, I will never end. But I think that’s the goal.

Abha: And of course, all of this also shows not just as you said, being incredibly curious, but also a quite a strong determination to find a solution. And I heard that your determination showed itself when you were quite young, something to do with a clarinet.

Carmen: Oh, that tooth thing. Yeah. Shall I explain that?

Abha: If you happen to share it?

Carmen: Yeah. So yes, I’m stubborn. That’s the main line of this thing. And when I think I have to do something, I just go for it. The kamikaze thing that I told you before. Yes. Again, so I was small and I needed a new clarinet and I could not buy it myself because I was not winning money yet. And my parents could not afford a clarinet net because I needed to have the brackets for the teeth. Yeah. Because I had one tooth that was in the wrong place and it was supposed to, I don’t know what was supposed to happen, but awful.

So I think I was nine, eight or nine year old years old. So not much reasoning process in my head. In my head was everything was straight. This tooth is a problem. So I will go and I will take it out and that’s it. So I went to the dentist that took a nine-year-old person and took out a perfectly fine tooth. But he did it. I paid for that and I went home, “Mama, look. I don’t have the tooth anymore. Now we come buy the clarinet.” She was devastated. Like, “What? Why?” So, but yeah, I got my clarinet.

Abha: You’ve got your clarinet.

Carmen: Still with me. I carry everywhere. I told you I move a lot, but the clarinet always comes with me.

Abha: And just in case, anyone’s thinking that we suggest you go and take your teeth out of a dentist.

Carmen: No, that’s a super bad idea. It’s a super bad idea. Now my mouth is completely, then years after another dentist told me, “But why did you take? Why is your mouth not balanced?” I don’t know how to say it in English, but it’s not. It’s moved to the other side, no? Because it’s missing a piece. All the teeth moved because they have space, but they are not in the right place. It looks not bad, but it’s not super healthy, let’s say.

Abha: But you have your clarinet and your clarinet took you to help you discover different places because you were in a marching band.

Carmen: It was a lot of things. Yes. I was in a lot of parties and I went to concerts and we traveled Europe with the band and was super nice. And I think music is one of those things that you have to do if you like it, pursuing music is one of those things that opens your mind a lot. At least it did that job for me. I knew a lot of people I could work. And yeah, it’s a bit of an effort. That’s true. But it pays off. Yeah. I was in parks and everything.

Abha: And of course, music also helps with the brain with connecting with code. So, we’re hoping that from this, people will think, “Ah, I can go and take up the clarinet,” and help your coding skills.

Carmen: It’s a nice instrument.

Woo being a part of your life and taking a break

Abha: It’s a good idea. It’s a lovely instrument. So obviously in your day job, you said you’re looking and talking about code for nine to 10 hours at a time. And how do you relax from WooCommerce, but also carry on not thinking about it necessarily, but having it as part of your life, do you find that in everything that you see and do, you think, “Oh, I can see WooCommerce solution,” or are you able to separate it?

Carmen: I’m trying more now to separate it because, I tend to, if I’m surfing around then I’m always opening the… What? How is this done? What is here? And then, yeah. I tend to see solutions or newsletters, reading things and try to keep up. But lately, I try to disconnect. And also, because I think that if you see other things, your connections or the way you solve problems, it gets more fresh. And if you are all the time in the bucket and all the time listening to the same things and you can see, or I have fun when I can’t make a link from a super unrelated thing to my day-to-day job is like, “Ah, I could use this. Right.” And it works. And it’s like, “Ah.” I don’t know. I read math problems. I’m an earth. What can I say?

Abha: No, but I know when I’m working on blood pressure releases, actually sometimes humming tunes that I know can help me focus better. And sometimes, just taking it away from that. And there’s something there for everybody. I know you’ve got a love of science fiction as well. And, movies like Singing in the Rain.

Carmen: Yeah, that’s my favorite.

Abha: I know. Because we were talking about humming it when we were at WordCamp Europe and we were both just accidentally humming the same piece. It was like, “Okay, this is really [inaudible].” So, and this is the joy of the WordPress and the WooCommerce community that you are only a stone’s throw away from somebody else who you may have this connection with, that may help you actually collaborate more on a coding project. But that connection may not be code. That connection could be something completely different.

Carmen: That’s true. Well, I have not experienced anything community WordPress before the WordCamp. So it was like an explosion. And also because I was with this colleague of mine, Robert, you know him. I was there and he was introducing me to a lot of people that were super. That’s the thing, what you were saying that you start talking maybe about WordPress or WooCommerce as in my case, because I use the opportunity to see the faces of all the people that maybe I interacted with in these years.

And then you don’t know how, and you’re talking about completely different things and you have a lot of things in common and, or I don’t know, there was people telling me, “No, you should go nomad.” Or I don’t know, very diverse. It was super nice because I could have, I did not have the same conversation twice and not even about code. That’s the nice thing.

Tips for building your own Woo story

Abha: And I think that’s a good advert for WordCamp Europe. And I know there’s lots of shows that we’ve got that Bob did over there as well. So if you haven’t caught them already, do look at the Do the Woo website and you’ll be able to play them back. So Carmen, in our last few minutes together for this show, can you share some tips to others who are thinking about building their own Woo builder story? What would you suggest in terms of how they should get started?

Carmen: I think you have to try and fail and then try again. From the stubborn point of view, even if you don’t know anything, even if you think you don’t know code or know nothing, if you just have this idea, if I want to create something, and the nice thing of WordPress and WooCommerce is that there is that many, that amount of documentation, and that amount of people that are willing, I don’t know why, is completely amazing. All these people that is willing to help out of nothing. And you ask a question and they answer is amazing.

So I would say they have to, if you have an idea, small one, and that is nothing like it, because I repeat it for me, collaborating with something that exists would be better than start anything new. You just try it. And you see, there are many tools now that allow you to start. And then from there, you can just develop more or get it more complicated and, or ask the questions. And don’t be, that’s one of the things.

The first things I learned while working that they did not teach me in university, that you don’t have to be afraid to ask, that eventually that I had that feeling that “No, this question will be stupid.” Maybe the other is easy for others. Maybe the others already know the answer, but that’s the good thing, because for them, will be 10 seconds to answer you, your stupid question, no? If that’s what you feel, but do it, just ask. And then this answer, you already have it. And then you go to the next question, and eventually, you don’t know how, you are the one answering the questions and that happens and you don’t realize, and you have built something new. And yeah, it’s just let it happen. Just go for it. Yeah. It’s super cliche, but try, just try.

Abha: Carmen, excellent advice. And I’m sure be very helpful to many people in this space. And I think you’ve shown that you can travel across a different journey path to become a developer. And as you have, and been working freelance and now working for a big international agency, and I’m sure that people will want to continue the conversation with you and where can people find you online?

Carmen: Ooh, I guess the easiest way is Twitter because I, yes. And then I have a blog, but I still have to… I have this will lately to answer question that no one asked me, but yeah, I will come with more of that maybe in the next episode, but yeah, I think for now Twitter would be nice. I would love to hear of more stories and yeah, I like to talk with people. Yeah.

Abha: So Carmen, what is your Twitter handle?

Carmen: @CarmenMaymo.

Abha: It’s been absolutely lovely to see you again.

Carmen: I had so much fun.

Abha: And so glad that you had a great WordCamp Europe experience.

Carmen: Yes.

Abha: And we have some ideas for you as part of this series as well. So I will be talking to you and now about that. And I’m sure what this won’t be the last time that we will hear about this or the dancing. So definitely, dance while you think.

Carmen: Ah, you have the line.

Abha: Yeah, well, my mind’s working on the advertising slogan, how we put that with WooCommerce. So I’m sure we will find a perfect solution. And I might even drop it in to Do the Woo Slack channel about getting the presenters to do the Woo dance. So, on that note, if you are listing to this and you have your own Woo builder story that you can share, inspire others, help spread the word and basically have a great time on Do the Woo. Please get in touch. And I’m Abha Thakor, and we are delighted to have you on the show. So thank you, Carmen.

Carmen: Thank you so much. This was super fun.