I’m Lance Willett. I lead quality at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, and more.
I help teams build high-quality software that works at scale. Focused on results—we aim to ship reliable products that fulfill our promises to customers.
With 15+ years in engineering and product leadership, my work builds repeatable systems for testing, release, and feedback loops across mobile and web apps.
I write to clarify my thinking and invite conversation. You’ll find a range of posts here across quality, leadership, productivity, and how teams work.
Work history:
Automattic (returned in 2024, reporting to the CEO): As Chief Quality Officer, I make life better for people around the world by shaping a company culture to consistently produce high-quality software.
Mission: Improve the end-to-end customer experience across all Automattic products & teams so they represent our brand and the promise to customers well.
HubSpot: GM for emerging CMS business line, scale from thousands to millions of websites with a new freemium offering (2022–2023). I led the CMS product team at HubSpot, evolving a robust content platform for all product lines across Marketing, Sales, and Service. Managing a team of 14+ product managers, I partnered closely with a team of leaders across UX and Engineering to identify, measure, and deliver strategic opportunities for the product.
Tumblr: massive transformation for team, business, and brand refresh after an acquisition—chosen as second-in-command for the new unit (2020–2022). I led product and technology teams across 150+ people working in product management, engineering, data science, software testing, and internationalization.
Proven leader to scale distributed teams at remote-work innovator Automattic. (2010 to 2020) At Automattic I held product executive roles for WordPress.com and Jetpack, contributing to both user and revenue growth for the flagship app used daily by millions of bloggers and site owners. As an early employee for WordPress.com, I’ve led teams at each stage of the company’s strong growth, from launching 300+ WordPress themes and a theme marketplace to redefining the new user experience on our flagship web application. Scaled product and engineering teams from 50 people to over 1,500 across 10 years.
Prior to Automattic, I owned and operated a web development agency based in Tucson, AZ—working with a variety of clients.
Born in Mexico City and raised between Durango (Mexico), Buffalo, NY & Tucson—I’m now based in Tucson, Arizona, USA.
See also: Lance on the Go for photos and links.
Follow me and connect on LinkedIn, Tumblr, GitHub, Mastodon, Goodreads, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, and Facebook.
At a Glance
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Speaking | Cultivating Quality in Open Source: Modern Strategies for Shared Responsibility, hosted in Denver for Automattic, June 2025 at Open Source Summit 2025. The Power of Website Personalization to Drive Sales, presented in Chicago, IL May 2023 for HubSpot and AmericanEagle.com. Product-Driven GTM Fuels the B2B SaaS Engine, advisor to the Simpleview product team, January 2023 in Tucson, AZ. ProductCon September 2021, keynote speaker. Topic: Your First 90 Days: Listen, Learn and Act. |
| Podcast / Interview | Being Intentional About Quality with Lance Willett on Complementary podcast with hosts Anthony Hobday and Katie Langerman (episode 64, August 2025). Automattic Chief Quality Officer, Lance Willett, on What It Takes to Power 45% of the Web and Learning from a $250K Mistake on Between Two COOs podcast (episode 53, July 2025) Turing Distinguished Leader Series on YouTube (December 2021) Path Into Product with Aaron Airmet and Ashley Roberts (episode 13, October 2021) Remote Leadership at Tumblr on PM for the Masses with Cesar Abeid (episode 137, September 2021) |
| Press | HubSpot releases free CMS with marketing, CRM integrations, TechTarget, July 2022. Tumblr Introduces Paid Subscription Tool to Woo Younger Bloggers, Wall Street Journal, July 2021. The Muse: “Meet the Chief Product & Technology Officer, Tumblr an employee at Automattic.” |
| Board / Mentor | Irregular Hours, Tribe Labs, AudiencePlus, Mighty, ShareOrb, Brain.fm, and others. Startup or scaleup founder? Contact me for details on how I can help you grow your team and business effectively. |
View more on Linkedin or get in touch.
Credit: Lance’s headshot by Chris Mooney Photography.
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