Devin Walker, recently appointed Artistic Director (head) of Jetpack at Automattic, joined the Jukebox Podcast to discuss his WordPress background, why he accepted the role, and his plans for refocusing Jetpack. A co-founder of GiveWP and creator of WP Rollback, Devin brings development, design, marketing, and support experience to a product that powers millions of sites but often sparks mixed reactions.
Why take Jetpack?
Devin weighed two paths after leaving Liquid Web: start another independent product or join Automattic to lead Jetpack. He chose the latter for impact and the chance to work inside a company he respected. Jetpack is divisive and complex, and he saw an opportunity to apply lessons about focus—lessons he learned growing GiveWP—to reshape Jetpack’s priorities and user experience.
The problem: jack of all trades, master of none
Jetpack bundles a wide array of features—stats, backups, security, performance, social sharing, forms, VideoPress, SEO, and more. Over time, specialized third-party plugins raised expectations in each area. Jetpack’s breadth makes it hard to be best-in-class everywhere. Devin’s approach is to bring focus: strengthen areas where Jetpack can serve the majority of users well (e.g., forms, on-site AI features) and consider sunsetting or deprioritizing features that don’t deliver value or compete poorly with specialized tools.
Organizational changes and how Jetpack is built
Automattic has been shifting from a traditional functional org to a matrixed model. Instead of siloed teams for Jetpack, .com, and other products, there’s now a shared architecture and more cross-product collaboration. That allows teams to work on shared initiatives—such as forms, which recently received major upgrades in Jetpack 15.2 with further improvements planned—while leveraging engineering and design talent across Automattic.
This model aims to make products work better together (e.g., Jetpack and WooCommerce), but it requires careful prioritization. Some parts of Jetpack will get more attention during focused sprints; other parts may be maintained but not actively advanced until resources align.
Focus areas and realistic goals
Devin is pragmatic: Jetpack doesn’t need to beat every specialist plugin in every niche. The goal is to be excellent for 98% of use cases and fulfill the needs of most users out-of-the-box. For complex, highly customized needs (advanced forms logic, niche SEO workflows), third-party tools will still be appropriate.
Concrete priorities he discussed:
– Forms: Significant upgrades underway to make Jetpack Forms competitive and user-friendly for most sites.
– Onboarding and connection flows: Improve first-time experience for connecting sites to wordpress.com to increase successful connections and demonstrate Jetpack’s value.
– Simplify UI: Reduce confusing toggles, consolidate multiple places where settings overlap, and present clearer, more coherent navigation.
– Marketing and perception: Revitalize Jetpack’s external messaging and make more of Automattic’s internal work public so users understand Jetpack’s value and roadmap.
AI and the future of Jetpack
AI is a major priority. Jetpack already includes hidden AI conveniences—automatic excerpts and featured images at publish time, for example—but Devin says current capabilities are just the beginning. Automattic has a large AI engineering effort, and Jetpack is the vehicle to bring many .com AI features to self-hosted WordPress.
Potential AI use-cases discussed:
– Content companion: Better inline content assistance within the editor and beyond—help with conversion, newsletters, presales, and visitor interactions.
– Block generation and site building: Integrating technologies like Telex (Automattic’s AI block generation tool) so users can generate blocks via prompts directly in the editor. Jetpack could manage and surface such generated blocks more cleanly than the current plugin-per-block approach.
– Glue between products: AI can connect disparate Jetpack features into a coherent experience that helps users achieve outcomes rather than fiddling with tools.
Constraints: scale and caution
Jetpack’s install base (the core plugin is at about 4 million installations) imposes constraints. Devin must balance ambition with stability: frequent, safe monthly releases are standard, and breaking changes cause negative reviews and user churn. The team watches reviews closely—broken features and poor support are common causes of one-star ratings—and aims to raise the overall rating with steady improvement rather than disruptive moves.
Marketing, transparency, and community
Devin believes Jetpack needs more active marketing and clearer messaging. Historically, Jetpack’s success benefited from Automattic’s reputation; now the WordPress ecosystem is more crowded and marketing must be more intentional. He wants to make more internal work public, refresh the website and messaging, and increase visibility through outreach like videos and tutorials.
User feedback and collaboration
Devin emphasizes user-centered design methods such as Jobs to Be Done to see the product from users’ perspectives. He plans to use direct feedback, public posts, and community engagement to guide changes, acknowledging that big improvements require close collaboration with users. He encourages people to submit feedback and bug reports.
Where to send feedback
Devin listed [email protected] and jetpack.com/feedback as channels and is open to direct contact via Twitter (@innerwebs) or devin.org. He intends to make feedback channels more visible as part of the product and marketing improvements.
Next steps and measurement
Devin framed his role as a multi-year project: prioritize and polish existing functionality, make Jetpack easier to understand and use, harness AI to provide new kinds of value, and improve marketing and documentation so users can find and benefit from Jetpack features. He suggested a public check-in in 12 months to assess progress and promised to focus on measurable improvements like fewer confusing toggles, smoother onboarding, higher review scores, and clearer product messaging.
Summary
Devin Walker brings product-building experience and a focus on simplicity to Jetpack. His plan centers on prioritization: improve core features that serve most users well (notably forms and AI-driven content and building tools), simplify the user interface, boost marketing and transparency, and work within Automattic’s new matrix structure to leverage cross-product engineering and design talent. With Jetpack’s scale, changes must be careful and iterative. Devin invites feedback and will aim to show measurable progress over the coming year.
