Devin Walker, newly named Artistic Director of Jetpack at Automattic, joined the Jukebox Podcast to explain why he took the role and how he plans to reshape the plugin. A co-founder of GiveWP and the creator of WP Rollback, Devin brings product, engineering, design, marketing, and support experience to a plugin that powers millions of WordPress sites but often prompts divided opinions.
Why he joined
Devin considered building another independent product after leaving Liquid Web but chose to join Automattic to have greater impact inside a company he respects. He saw Jetpack’s size and scope as an opportunity to apply lessons about focus and prioritization from his previous work—especially around shipping fewer, better-executed features that serve most users well.
The core problem: breadth over depth
Jetpack bundles many capabilities—statistics, backups, security, performance, sharing, forms, VideoPress, SEO and more. Over time, specialist plugins have raised user expectations in each area, making it hard for a single product to be best-in-class everywhere. Devin’s approach is pragmatic: double down on areas where Jetpack can satisfy the majority of users and consider sunsetting or deprioritizing features that don’t deliver clear value or that compete poorly with dedicated tools.
How Jetpack is organized now
Automattic has moved toward a matrix-style organization with shared architecture and cross-product teams rather than siloed groups. That lets engineers and designers collaborate on common initiatives—like recent upgrades to Jetpack’s forms—while aligning work across Automattic products such as WooCommerce. In practice this means some parts of Jetpack will see focused investment in sprints, while others will be maintained until priorities or resources shift.
Concrete priorities
Devin named a handful of realistic goals:
– Forms: Make Jetpack Forms competitive and easy enough for the vast majority of sites without matching every advanced niche feature.
– Onboarding and connections: Improve first-time flows for connecting sites to wordpress.com so more users experience Jetpack’s value quickly.
– Simplify the UI: Reduce overlapping toggles, consolidate settings that live in multiple places, and clarify navigation.
– Marketing and transparency: Refresh external messaging, publish more of the team’s work publicly, and create clearer resources so users understand Jetpack’s value and roadmap.
AI as a growth lever
AI is a major focus. Jetpack already uses AI for conveniences like automated excerpts and featured images, but Devin sees much more potential. Automattic’s AI efforts could enable in-editor content assistance, block generation from prompts (using tools like Telex), and smarter ways to stitch Jetpack features together so users reach outcomes instead of toggling settings. The aim is to bring .com AI capabilities to self-hosted WordPress in a way that feels useful and coherent.
Constraints: scale and caution
Jetpack’s large install base—around four million active installs—creates pressure for stability. Devin must balance innovation with safe, frequent releases; breaking changes lead to poor reviews and churn. The team monitors reviews to identify broken features and support gaps and plans steady, measured improvements rather than disruptive rewrites.
Community, feedback, and measurement
Devin wants better marketing and clearer public communication about what Jetpack is and where it’s headed. He plans to use user-centered methods (like Jobs to Be Done), public posts, and direct feedback to guide decisions. Channels he mentioned for input include [email protected] and jetpack.com/feedback, and he’s open to being reached at @innerwebs or devin.org. He intends to make feedback opportunities more visible inside the product.
Next steps and expectations
Devin frames this as a multi-year effort: prioritize and polish core features, simplify the experience, integrate meaningful AI features, and improve documentation and outreach so users can find and use Jetpack’s capabilities. He suggested a public check-in in about a year and will measure progress with tangible signals: fewer confusing toggles, smoother onboarding and connections, higher review scores, and clearer product messaging.
Summary
Devin Walker brings a focus-on-simplicity mindset to Jetpack. His plan is to concentrate on the features that serve most users well (notably forms and AI-driven content and building tools), simplify the interface, increase transparency and marketing, and use Automattic’s cross-product resources to iterate carefully. Given Jetpack’s scale, changes will be incremental and measured, and Devin is soliciting feedback as the team pursues measurable improvements over the coming year.