I got a new role at work today. On Wednesday, nearly a full week ago, we were all rocked by a 16% layoff. Tumblr was hit pretty hard, and we lost a lot of great people. We were also fortunate in that we kept more people than Tumblr needed, and found other roles for them at Automattic.

Tumblr is smaller now, and a sharper, tighter group I don’t think anyone could ask for. I have so much confidence in this team! The new lead is an engineer I think will do a fantastic job, and I intend to help him as much as possible so that he isn’t too overwhelmed or stuck.

In the meantime, though, my new role will be leading Trust and Safety for Automattic. Which functionally means I won’t be very far from Tumblr at all – it will be the primary product we support. And I have a lot of experience working with T&S already from my role at Tumblr, so this move makes a lot of sense. I feel very strongly about upholding our promise to our community to keep it safe. I don’t think we have always done a great job (and I’m sure I’ll make mistakes too), but my hope is to come by those mistakes honestly, and leave the community on the whole better protected with more robust policies that work for them. Lofty goals, for sure.

I will miss working closely with a lot of folks, many of whom I hold in high regard. I have talked to many of them, and they have continued to exhibit the high character that all Automatticians share. I hope to work with them again some day.