Development is where things either hold up or fall apart. It’s where shortcuts become technical debt, and where solid decisions turn into systems that run for years without drama.
If you build with WordPress, this is your arena. Not just to learn something new, but to sharpen how you think, how you structure, and how you deliver under real-world constraints.
Why development matters when it actually counts
Most projects don’t fail because of missing features. They fail because of poor decisions early on. Wrong abstractions, fragile integrations, performance ignored until it’s too late.
This is where you get better at avoiding exactly that:
- You’ll see how others structure complex builds and what they do differently.
- You’ll learn where performance really breaks, and how to fix it before it does.
- You’ll understand how to build in a way that survives client changes, new requirements, and scale.
- You’ll get clarity on modern WordPress development, not just what’s possible, but what actually works in practice.
- You’ll leave with approaches you can apply immediately, not theory you forget next week.
This is not about perfect code. It’s about building things that work, last, and do not come back to haunt you.
In short, if you care about the quality of what you ship, this is where you invest your time.
The Talks
Panel: inside WordPress 7.0
Speaker: Juan Manuel Garrido, Adam Silverstein, Benjamin Zekavica, Sarah Norris, Milana Cap
Where: Track 2
When: Friday 5 June at 10:15
Session page: Panel: inside WordPress 7.0
WordPress 7.0 is not yet another WordPress release. It might be the most significant release in a while. It comes with features we couldn’t even imagine a couple of years ago. It’s changing how we use WordPress and how we develop on top of and with WordPress. It’s changing everything.
Join a group of contributors who helped with this release in various ways to discuss not just new features in the software itself, but also the process of releasing such an impactful software, human errors, contribution workflows, and anything you wish to know about WordPress 7.0.
JuanMa is a Developer Advocate with 20+ years of experience in web development, specializing in JavaScript and WordPress. He works as Developer Relations at Automattic. A WordPress core contributor, he co-leads the Triage team for the WP 7.0 release squad and is part of the WordPress Test Team. He focuses on advocating for WordPress as a full-featured and AI-ready development framework.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @juanmaguitar
Adam is a WordPress core committer where he works to fix bugs and improve modern web capabilities. Previously at Google, these days he is focused on WordPress core where he works as a sponsored contributor. Adam loves long rafting trips, playing mbira, travel, taking walks and tending his over-sized garden.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @adamsilverstein
Benjamin Zekavica shows how companies can use WordPress as a serious digital infrastructure instead of treating it as just another website. As the founder of Kreo Pulse and UnleashWP and a member of the WordPress Core Team, he combines strategic perspective with technical depth. Kreo Pulse helps companies use WordPress with greater clarity, reliability, and structure. With UnleashWP, he shares practical knowledge for professionals who want to do more than just use WordPress. They want to understand it more deeply and apply it more deliberately.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @benjamin_zekavica
Milana Cap is a WordPress engineer at XWP, freelance WordPress engineer at Toptal, WordPress Documentation Team representative, plugin reviewer, and Documentation Focus lead for WordPress 5.8 – 6.2 release cycles, and end-user docs for 7.0. She helped organise some of the largest WordPress conferences, WordCamp Europe 2018 and 2019, focusing on Contributor Days, and 2026 as a member of the Speakers team. Being a single mum in Serbia, she developed the superpower of fighting the odds. Easily bribed with dark chocolate and a nice piece of bacon.
Follow her work on WordPress.org as @milana_cap
Natalia Basiura is an operations leader and startup builder working at the intersection of technology, community, and communication. She currently serves as Operations Director at Kraków Miastem Startupów Foundation, where she turns ideas into structured processes and helps teams deliver impactful projects.
She is the founder of FastMic, a platform that transforms event communication by enabling real-time audience interaction and turning passive attendees into active participants. She also leads Corpatriot, a project focused on building a community around civil defense and women’s safety, combining education, technology, and real-world needs.
Natalia has experience across both startup and NGO sectors, from cultural initiatives to tech-driven social projects. She actively co-creates communities, including LinkedIn Local Kraków, and serves on the board of Ubi Es? Foundation.
Her approach blends strategy with execution – she builds, tests, and improves, always staying close to people and their needs.
Follow her work on WordPress.org as @nataliabasiura
Fighting spam and bots on WordPress with AI
Speaker: Adeolu Oshadare
Where: Track 2
When: Saturday 6 June at 14:10
Session page: Fighting spam and bots on WordPress with AI
Learn how AI-powered solutions can help WordPress sites combat spam, bots, and fake sign-ups. Discover how lightweight, privacy-friendly AI detects abnormal behavior to enhance security and performance.
Adeolu is a data professional with a strong interest in applying AI to solve practical problems. Her work focuses on using machine learning techniques to detect patterns, improve systems, and enhance user experience. At WordCamp Europe 2026, she will share a practical approach to identifying and preventing spam and bot activity in WordPress, breaking down how AI can be used in a simple and effective way without unnecessary complexity.
Follow her work on WordPress.org as @mary1197
Smarter plugin permissions with the Abilities API
Speaker: Anukasha Singh
Where: Track 2
When: Friday 5 June at 14:30
Session page: Smarter plugin permissions with the Abilities API
Discover how the new Abilities API makes plugin permissions cleaner, safer, and easier to maintain. In just a few minutes, you’ll see how it differs from legacy capability checks, learn from a small code example, and get actionable tips you can take back to your own plugins.
I’m Anukasha, a developer specializing in WordPress security and authentication systems. I have built enterprise-grade SSO and identity solutions, integrating protocols like OAuth, SAML, JWT. I’m passionate about cybersecurity and open source technologies, and always up for talking security.
Follow her work on WordPress.org as @anukasha
Headless WordPress API security in 10 minutes
Speaker: Ariel Ramos
Where: Track 2
When: Saturday 6 June at 14:20
Session page: Headless WordPress API security in 10 minutes
Learn the five steps to design secure headless WordPress architectures. This talk focuses on API-first security, attack surface reduction, and practical decisions when exposing WordPress APIs to mobile apps and PWAs.
Master’s degree in Cybersecurity from Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (Spain) and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Universidad Fidélitas (Costa Rica). Currently serves as CEO of Codingraph, specializing in secure software development and information asset protection consulting.
With over 12 years of experience in software development across both public and private sectors, delivering robust and secure technological solutions.
Certified ISO 27001 Auditor and Cisco DevNet Associate.
Speaks Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Japanese.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @arielramos
Get your plugin ready for submission to the directory
Speaker: David Perez
Where: Workshop 1
When: Friday 5 June at 14:30
Session page: Get your plugin ready for submission to the directory
You’ve spent weeks coding the perfect plugin, and you’re finally ready to share it with the WordPress community. You hit “submit,” wait, and then… the team’s volunteers point out a lot of issues you didn’t even know you were causing.
Getting your plugin into the official directory doesn’t have to be a trial by fire. Join Francisco and David as they reveal the most common, easy-to-fix issues that keep great plugins stuck in the review queue.
In this talk, you will learn:
The “First-Time Success” checklist: what reviewers actually look for.
How to avoid the most frequent security and naming pitfalls.
Tips to streamline your code for faster approval and a better plugin.
Whether you are a seasoned dev or a first-time contributor, this session will give you the roadmap to go from “Pending” to “Approved” without the headache.
David and Francisco are members of the Plugins Team, and together they have reviewed more than 25k plugins, with that number increasing. You’ll save time for them and other plugin reviewers! Everyone wins!
David is a CTO and developer at a digital agency, and an active contributor to the WordPress ecosystem. As part of the WordPress.org Plugins Team, he spends a good part of his time reviewing plugins and helping improve code quality across the community.
He approaches problems with persistence and a practical mindset, focusing on delivering solid, reliable solutions. He enjoys tackling complex technical challenges and finding simple, practical ways to make things work better.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @davidperez
Build your developer portfolio: a hands-on guide to FSE
Speaker: Dejan Rudic Vranic
Where: Workshop 1
When: Saturday 6 June at 09:00
Session page: Build your developer portfolio: a hands-on guide to FSE
Full Site Editing isn’t just for DIY users—it is a powerful architectural tool for professionals. Join this workshop to master the lifecycle of a modern Block Theme. We will build a portfolio site to showcase your work, focusing on three core skills: scaffolding with the Create Block Theme plugin, configuring design systems via theme.json, and implementing governance (locking APIs) to protect your design. Leave with a working theme and a repeatable workflow for your next client project.
Dejan Rudić Vranić is a WordPress developer and owner of Studio Agnis, a specialized consultancy focused on complex systems integration — connecting enterprise platforms like Salesforce, CRMs, and payment gateways with WordPress. With over a decade of hands-on experience serving clients across Europe and the US, he approaches every project with the precision of his earlier career as a civil engineer: built to hold, not just to demo. Based in Niš, Serbia, Dejan is a first-time WordCamp speaker. Outside of code, he and his wife run the Architect Aleksandar Radović Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to cultural heritage preservation and supporting young professionals in conservation.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @archiplace2015
HTML API practicum: a deep dive
Speaker: Dennis Snell
Where: Workshop 2
When: Friday 5 June at 10:15
Session page: HTML API practicum: a deep dive
The HTML API is almost three years old, but continues to evolve with each WordPress release. It’s seen deployment in WordPress’ backend, in Gutenberg, and in many plugins and themes. The HTML API’s core values have even expanded into new pipelines for working with block structure and text encodings, helping to modernise, optimise, and harden WordPress.
This in-depth workshop will review recent updates, explore undocumented capabilities of these APIs, cast a vision for their ongoing development, provide hands-on experience working with and expanding them, and offer quality time for asking questions and interactively exploring the answers.
Dennis aspires to fix things that have broken and build things that won’t. He co-wrote the HTML API and designed the Block parser. In his spare time, he takes pictures, planes wood, and codes for fun.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @dmsnell
What’s new in WordPress Playground?
Speaker: Fellyph Cintra
Where: Track 1
When: Friday 5 June at 12:30
Session page: What’s new in WordPress Playground?
Discover the latest evolution of WordPress Playground in a talk designed for every skill level. We will start with the new, easy-to-use web tools, including the Blueprints Editor, File Editor, and the new Admin Database Manager.
Then, we will look under the hood at the architectural changes, like modular PHP versions and OpCache support, that have boosted performance by over 40%. Finally, we will explore advanced developer workflows, including running PHP with Composer in the browser, debugging with Xdebug, and automating tests with Playwright.
Fellyph Cintra is a Developer Relations Advocate at Automattic, working on the WordPress Playground project to revolutionize the development and user experience in the WordPress ecosystem. With 19 years of front-end experience, his WordPress journey began in 2008. He has worked with digital agencies and one of the biggest news portals in Brazil, UOL.
Passionate about education and community. An AI enthusiast, he excels at connecting with people and translating ideas to improve the open web. He is an active contributor to the ecosystem, having co-organized events in São Paulo and Dublin and spoken at over 20 WordCamps worldwide.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @fellyph
Get your plugin ready for submission to the directory
Speaker: Fran Torres
Where: Workshop 1
When: Friday 5 June at 14:30
Session page: Get your plugin ready for submission to the directory
You’ve spent weeks coding the perfect plugin, and you’re finally ready to share it with the WordPress community. You hit “submit,” wait, and then… the team’s volunteers point out a lot of issues you didn’t even know you were causing.
Getting your plugin into the official directory doesn’t have to be a trial by fire. Join Francisco and David as they reveal the most common, easy-to-fix issues that keep great plugins stuck in the review queue.
In this talk, you will learn:
The “First-Time Success” checklist: what reviewers actually look for.
How to avoid the most frequent security and naming pitfalls.
Tips to streamline your code for faster approval and a better plugin.
Whether you are a seasoned dev or a first-time contributor, this session will give you the roadmap to go from “Pending” to “Approved” without the headache.
David and Francisco are members of the Plugins Team, and together they have reviewed more than 25k plugins, with that number increasing. You’ll save time for them and other plugin reviewers! Everyone wins!
Francisco is a consultant and developer, and has been an active member of the WordPress community since 2012.
As a contributor to the WordPress.org Plugins Team, he spends his days finding solutions to technical and human challenges.
He believes in the power of “good vibes,” creativity, and experimentation. When he isn’t triaging hundreds of plugins, you’ll likely find him cycling, swimming, or travelling by train.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @frantorres
Accessibility in themes: easier than you think
Speaker: Jessica Lyschik
Where: Track1
When: Friday 5 June at 11:00
Session page: Accessibility in themes: easier than you think
Many theme developers assume accessibility-ready requirements are hard to meet — but that’s rarely true. This session shares practical insights from real theme reviews and shows how both block and classic themes can reach accessibility-ready status with manageable effort.
Jessica Lyschik is a senior developer at Greyd and a WordPress core contributor. She was the Default Theme Co-Lead for the Twenty Twenty-Four theme. Outside of work, she enjoys building LEGO sets, traveling, and listening to music over a cup of tea.
Follow her work on WordPress.org as @luminuu
50 shades of cache: a WooCommerce deep dive
Speaker: Mateusz Zadorożny
Where: Workshop 1
When: Saturday 6 June at 14:00
Session page: 50 shades of cache: a WooCommerce deep dive
Caching in WooCommerce isn’t one thing p it’s fifty. In this hands-on workshop, we demystify the full spectrum of WordPress and WooCommerce caching layers: OPcache, server-level cache, page/HTML cache, object cache, and WooCommerce-specific caching quirks. No theory for theory’s sake – we’ll walk through real examples, debug common cache misses, and show live demos of how each layer impacts performance, stability, and TTFB.
Mateusz Zadorożny is the founder of SHIFT64, a consultancy specializing in WooCommerce performance architecture. Working with WordPress since 2012 and obsessed with WooCommerce scalability since 2017. At SHIFT64, he operates a transparent BYOS (Bring Your Own Server) model – replacing overcrowded shared hosting with dedicated high-frequency infrastructure that clients fully own. A WooCommerce absolutist by choice: doesn’t touch PrestaShop, Magento, or “care plans” on infrastructure he didn’t build. By day, he leads e-commerce engineering at Merida, building a highly customized B2B platform from the ground up.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @mateuszz
Secure-by-design: hardening plugins with PHP 8.x
Speaker: Milan Petrović
Where: Track 2
When: Friday 5 June at 16:00
Session page: Secure-by-design: hardening plugins with PHP 8.x
In the WordPress ecosystem, we are often forced to choose between supporting the “lowest common denominator” of hosting and implementing modern security. But in 2026, writing legacy PHP 7 code isn’t just a bad habit, it’s an active invitation for automated exploitation. It’s time to stop playing “whack-a-mole” with sanitization and start building products that are secure by design.
This talk isn’t just another slide deck on security tips, through comparisons of a Vulnerability Lab plugin, you will see how common exploits like authentication bypass and Server Side Request Forgery succeed on legacy code, only to be neutralized by the native shields of the latest PHP. You will learn how to leverage the modern PHP patterns to ensure your plugins are resilient to a wide range of exploits.
Milan Petrović is a Senior Full Stack Developer at Freemius, where he joined the team in 2024. Prior to this, Milan spent over 15 years as the founder of Dev4Press, where he specialized in the WordPress and bbPress ecosystems. Since 2007, he has been a prolific developer, building and maintaining a diverse catalog of plugins designed to extend forum functionality and site management.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @gdragon
Bug report to repro in 60 seconds with Playground
Speaker: Muryam Sultana
Where: Track 2
When: Friday 5 June at 16:45
Session page: Bug report to repro in 60 seconds with Playground
Learn how WordPress Playground helps QA teams turnbug reports into instantly reproducible environments. This session shows how shareable Playground links and Blueprints improve testing, collaboration, and debugging—without complex local setup.
Muryam Sultana is a QA Engineer at WPMU DEV and a contributor to WordPress Playground. She has created and submitted multiple Playground Blueprints and focuses on building reproducible testing workflows for WordPress. Muryam has previously presented on WordPress Playground at WordCamp Islamabad, where she shared practical insights on modern WordPress testing and development using WordPress Playground and Blueprints. Her work centers on quality assurance, automation, and improving collaboration between QA and development teams in the WordPress ecosystem.
Follow her work on WordPress.org as @muryam
Stress testing and scaling WordPress on a $12 VPS
Speaker: Nedko Hristov
Where: Track 2
When: Friday 5 June at 15:15
Session page: Stress testing and scaling WordPress on a $12 VPS
From server crash to enterprise scale – a live-fire DevOps exercise. We’ll stress-test a WP stack on a $12 VPS, visualizing bottlenecks in Grafana before implementing a hybrid-static leap. GitHub repo included!
A WordPress veteran and speaker who never lost the curiosity required to solve complex problems with minimal resources.
After transitioning from QA to DevOps five years ago, he discovered he could break systems significantly faster than ever before.
A staunch advocate for knowledge sharing and mentorship, he spends his offline hours on two wheels, riding roads and trails as if his uptime depends on it.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @climbatize
Improving the performance of the WordPress query classes
Speaker: Peter Wilson
Where: Track 2
When: Saturday 6 June at 14:45
Session page: Improving the performance of the WordPress query classes
The WordPress Performance team was established in 2021 with the goal of improving the performance of WordPress Core. As a fundamental part of rendering each and every page of a WordPress site, the WP_Query class has received a lot of attention.
In this talk, Peter will discuss how the performance of WP_Query and the WordPress Query component have been improved with increased caching, and how that can be taken full advantage of when building WordPress sites at scale.
Peter Wilson has worked on large scale WordPress projects since 2015, is a member of the WordPress Performance team and has been a WordPress Core Committer for ten years. Peter is currently a Lead Engineer at Fueled’s 10up WordPress practice and an alumni of Nine Publishing’s CMS Authoring team. Away from the keyboard, Peter is a big fan of musical theater and enjoys talking about this at length in the hallway track with unsuspecting attendees at tech conferences.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @peterwilsoncc
Block bindings for all!
Speaker: Robert O’Rourke
Where: Track 2
When: Friday 5 June at 14:50
Session page: Block bindings for all!
Block bindings have been available for a few versions of WP now but limited to a few core blocks and attributes, and further limited to post meta and synced patterns as a user facing tool. Now that bindable attributes and the UI can be extended there has never been a better time to get to know the benefits of this powerful feature for really taking control of blocks and content.
Robert has worked with WordPress and the web for over 2 decades, most recently at Human Made. He can’t believe his luck that he gets to be a professional puzzle solver, and if he’s not coding, you’ll often see him working on a crossword or similar. He loves to travel, especially on road trips, and likes to keep active through climbing and boxing.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @sanchothefat
Building dynamic gallery experiences with WordPress Interactivity API
Speaker: Ryan Welcher
Where: Workshop 2
When: Saturday 6 June at 09:30
Session page: Building dynamic gallery experiences with WordPress Interactivity API
Take your block development skills to the next level! In this hands-on workshop, you’ll build a fully functional, touch-enabled gallery slider using the WordPress Interactivity API (IAPI)—the modern standard for adding dynamic, reactive experiences to WordPress blocks.
What You’ll Build
A production-ready gallery slider featuring slide navigation, infinite carousel mode, auto-play, and mobile swipe gestures—all powered by reactive state management.
What You’ll Learn
Core IAPI concepts: stores, state, context, directives, actions, and callbacks
How to extend WordPress core blocks with interactivity using PHP filters
Adding editor controls for user-configurable settings
Implementing touch event handling for mobile-friendly experiences
Who Should Attend
WordPress plugin and theme developers comfortable with block development basics who want to create richer, more interactive user experiences without relying on external JavaScript frameworks.
You’ll Leave With
Working code, a deeper understanding of the Interactivity API, and practical patterns you can apply to your own projects immediately.
👉 Bring your laptop and be ready to code!
Ryan is a Developer Advocate at Automattic. He focuses on removing barriers to adoption for developers working with Gutenberg and WordPress. He is a seasoned WordPress developer and regular contributor to WordPress and the Gutenberg project. He also streams on Twitch as RyanWelcherCodes were he focuses on custom block development.
Follow his work on WordPress.org as @welcher
Beyond hamburgers: latest Navigation block changes
Speaker: Sarah Norris
Where: Track 2
When: Friday 5 June at 14:40
Session page: Beyond hamburgers: latest Navigation block changes
Discover how the customisable navigation overlays transform mobile menu design. Learn what this new feature means for theme developers and see examples of creating theme-friendly, content-rich mobile navigation experiences using blocks and patterns.
Sarah is a software engineer and community contributor who can usually be found working in Core and the Editor. When not working on WordPress, she enjoys travelling, theme parks, comics, and hiking.
Follow her work on WordPress.org as @mikachan