Aaron Jorbin

About

Short Version:

Aaron is a polyhistoric man of the web who knows rabble-rousers get shit done. He has led engineering teams responsible for some of the largest and most prominent WordPress sites in the world including Rolling Stone, Variety, WIRED, The New Yorker, and The White House. He is also a WordPress Core Committer that focuses on improving developer happiness and making the internet usable and enjoyable by everyone. He tweets at @aaronjorbin and writes regularly at aaron.jorb.in.

Long Version:

Born and raised in suburban Chicagoland, Aaron and has been taking things apart and figuring out how things work since he was a young child. While in High School he was a DJ and remote sport broadcast producer for one of the longest-running high school radio stations, was a mediocre (at best) wrestler, and was a two-time finalist in the nation’s longest continuously running constitution contest.

After high school, he attended college in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. While there Aaron co-founded an Improv comedy troupe, served on student government, and became heavily involved in campus event planning. He also served on a variety of university committees, was Secretary General of the Model United Nations club, and served as a TA for two semesters. Also active inside the classroom, Aaron went through a variety of majors and minors taking classes in Physics, English, and Digital Cinema before finding himself with eventually finding a bachelor of science degree in Economics and Political Science with a minor in Speech Communication.

After graduating, Aaron moved to Portland, OR where he worked with small businesses and non-profit organizations to improve their web presence and productivity. He’s learned that it should never be the technology that stands in the way, and works to create easy workflows that allow you to control your website’s destiny.

After a few years of freelance work, Aaron decided to settle down and move to a quicker paced city. In October of 2010 Aaron joined Clearspring as a web developer on the AddThis Team. While there, Aaron worked on publisher products used by fourteen million domains and one point three billion users every month. While there, he authored the open-source PHP Metrics Library Phetric.

While in DC, he cofounded the WordPress DC User Group and spoke throughout the country at WordCamps and other events. In early 2013, he created the initial guidelines and global program for all WordPress meetups.

In July of 2012, Aaron Joined Privia Health as a Senior Interactivity Engineer where he focused on building great user experiences. While there, Aaron led front-end development, user experience design, & user interaction design.

In December 2013, Aaron moved to New York City and took on the role of Technical Architect for the Conde Nast Platform Team. While there, he worked on relaunches of the websites for WIRED, The New Yorker, SELF, and Vogue.

In late 2016, he joined Some Spider as Director of Engineering. Undergoing explosive growth, Aaron led the launch of a new property and the redesign and relaunch of every other property.

Aaron joined Penske Media Corpoartion in May of 2018 as Director of Editorial Technology. In his four and half years, he led multiple teams responsible for the day to day development of brands such as Rolling Stone, Variety, and Art News. Aaron worked on scaling the engineering team through hiring, career growth, and multiple initiatives that led to an increase in diversity, equity, and high employee retention.

Outside of coding, Aaron is a pationate believer in the educational experience of Model United Nations and serves on the Board of Directors for American Model United Nations International. Since 2006 he has served as a volunteer secretariat staffer for the fact-based multi-day simulation of the United Nations for over 1500 college students. He has filled the role of Simulation Director of the Security Council for thirty college students. In this role, Aaron wrote an issues background guide and directed the high paced simulation of international affairs that culminates in an overnight crisis. Aaron also served for multiple years as Director-General of Home Government where he trained and lead a fifteen person department that oversaw accuracy and factual information for the 1500+ person conference.

As a means of relaxation and creative output, Aaron creates visual art that he shares here on this site. Aaron Jorbin’s Art is highly influenced by the art he views as a member of art museums and through his travels.

Speaking Experience

I’m available for speaking engagements both public and private. For the past few years I’ve spoken around the country on a large number of topics related to open source software and web development, most commonly related to WordPress.

Guest Lectures

  • Howard University
  • Northern Michigan University

Conferences

  • A Day of Rest 2016 (MC), Boston 2017 (MC)
  • Accessibility Camp DC 2011/2012
  • Accessibility Camp Bay Area 2014
  • BlogHer Inclusive Future: Bridging the Gender Gap in STEM Careers
  • John Slatin AccessU 2013/2014
  • Open Source Bridge 2014
  • PHP Madison 2015
  • PHPUK 2015
  • Pressnomics 2016, 2017

WordCamps

  • Baltimore 2013(Keynote)
  • Boston 2012
  • Chicago 2010/2014
  • Europe 2015
  • Lancaster 2014, 2017, 2019
  • Miami 2014
  • Montclair 2019
  • New York City 2010/2012/2015/2016
  • Philly 2011/2012/2014/2015(Keynote)/2017
  • Phoenix 2011, 2020
  • Portland 2010
  • Raleigh 2011
  • San Francisco 2011/2014
  • St. Louis 2016 (Keynote)
  • United States 2015, 2019
  • Washington DC 2017

Meetups

  • Portland WordPress User Group
  • WordPress DC
  • Web Content Mavens (DC)
  • DC jQuery
  • DC Accessibility Meetup
  • DC PHP
  • Raleigh WordPress Meetup
  • BigWP – NYC
  • Montclair WordPress Meetup

Online Webinars

  • php[architect] Web Summit Series – WordPress
  • WP Sessions – Performance Driven Development
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