I joined Syde more than four years ago, and I have been working in development for over fifteen years. Every Hacktoberfest shows me again how meaningful our work can be.

Hacktoberfest is a global celebration of open source. For an entire month, people from all over the world focus on the tools, libraries, and documentation that support thousands of developers and organizations. The atmosphere is unique. Even if you do not meet the other contributors directly, you feel connected to a wider community that shares the same goals and direction.

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Hacktoberfest 2025 at Syde

Syde participated in Hacktoberfest again this year. This is part of our ongoing commitment to actively contributing to the open-source community. We build enterprise WordPress solutions for global organizations, and we rely on open source every day, so giving back is natural for us.

Hacktoberfest 2025 in numbers at Syde:

• 5 participants
• Approximately 50 hours of contribution time
• 27 contributions
• 25 of these contributions were merged during October 2025
• More than 10 open source projects supported

Our contributions included documentation improvements, bug fixes, feature additions, and code quality enhancements. These efforts supported projects across the broader WordPress and development ecosystems.

Why I Participate

My motivation is simple. I can contribute to the tools I use every day. Open source is available throughout the entire year, but Hacktoberfest adds a special kind of motivation and a sense of shared purpose. At Syde, this matches perfectly with our values: open heart, open mind, open source.

Participating gives me the feeling that I can help shape something larger than myself. It is rewarding to know that even a small contribution can make someone else’s work easier. And it is a nice bonus that trees are planted as part of the initiative.

Leading the Initiative at Syde

Last year, I asked in our internal channel if we were planning to join Hacktoberfest. From that moment on, I helped organise our participation. This year, I continued in the same role. I coordinated schedules, prepared our plugins and packages to welcome contributions, and supported colleagues who wanted to participate.

Syde is Europe’s biggest WordPress agency. The company was founded in 2006, and today we work fully remotely in more than 35 countries with over 130 colleagues worldwide. We create enterprise WordPress solutions for global brands, including multilingual sites, multisite architectures, e-commerce integrations, and custom platforms. Open source is at the core of our work.

Being the technical lead for Hacktoberfest at Syde is something I truly enjoy. I create structure, clear obstacles, and help the team contribute in a meaningful way.

My Contributions This Year

As in previous years, my focus was on integrating WordPress Playground into plugins. Last year, I created configuration files for a few plugins. This year, I worked on an issue related to Playground in one of our projects. I do not use Playground daily, but Hacktoberfest gives me time to experiment with it and learn.

This continuity reflects how we approach open source at Syde. We try to improve tools consistently and support the community long term.

Syde and Open Source

Open source is not an optional activity at Syde. It is part of how we build products and how we grow as a company. Hacktoberfest is one of the moments in which this becomes visible.

At Syde, we contribute to open source continuously, not only during Hacktoberfest. Open source is part of how we work and part of how our business grows. Throughout the entire year, we improve plugins, share knowledge, fix bugs, review contributions, and work on tools that benefit the wider community. During Hacktoberfest, this culture becomes even more visible because our developers are free to choose the projects they want to support and can actively give back to the ecosystem that we rely on daily.

We continue to participate because open source is something we actively maintain and improve. It is not only something we rely on, but something we value and support.

What Went Well and What Lies Ahead

The internal feedback from our developers was very positive. The team enjoyed participating and felt well supported. The only wish that came up was the desire for more time to dedicate to the initiative. We balance community contributions with client work by giving developers dedicated hours for Hacktoberfest. This allows everyone to join without putting ongoing client projects at risk.

For next year, I already see opportunities to go deeper. We can focus on even more strategic topics, improve documentation, and share our learnings more widely.

Final Thoughts

Being part of Syde means contributing to large-scale digital solutions for our clients and contributing to the open-source ecosystem that powers the web. Every issue fixed and every improvement delivered during Hacktoberfest becomes part of something larger.

And when September arrives again next year, I will be ready to ask if we are joining Hacktoberfest again next month. I am sure the answer will continue to be yes.

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