Kryterion and Automattic are changing what it means to be a professional WordPress developer

A question that has quietly frustrated WordPress developers and the businesses that hire them for years: how do you actually prove and verify that someone is as good as they say they are?

Resumes help. Portfolios help. But when you are trusting a developer to build and maintain a platform that your entire business runs on, “trust me, I know WordPress” has never really been good enough.

Until now, there was no serious, industry-wide answer to that question.

Kryterion, a company that has spent 25 years helping organizations build rigorous certification programs, and Automattic — the team behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, WordPress VIP, Tumblr, Jetpack, Pocket Casts, Day One, and a remarkable slice of the open web — have partnered to launch the Advanced Professional WordPress Developer certification.

It went live in mid-February 2026 as the most credible, independently-validated credential the WordPress development world has ever seen.

Built by those who understand ...