About Me
Hi, I’m Jamie Madden
I’m an Australian living in Düsseldorf, Germany with my wife Yen and our dog Banh Mi. After nearly 10 years in Vietnam, we packed up and moved to Europe at the end of 2025. These days I’m fully focused on education at n8n, where I work as Senior Developer Relations in Education. I’ve been working with internet technologies for close to 30 years, and automation has been the constant throughout, from early shell scripts and IRC bots to n8n. This drive to automate and optimize has been a constant thread in my technical journey.
For the past 15 years, WordPress has been at the core of my professional work, but my focus has expanded significantly. Today, I’m deeply involved in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and sharing my technical knowledge with others. This blend of established web technologies and cutting-edge AI allows me to bring unique perspectives to modern technical challenges.
Having been the founder of WC Vendors Marketplace, a leading open-source plugin designed for WooCommerce and WordPress, has led me to work in all levels of WordPress. Managing remote teams, business administration and everything that running your own business entails. I have built multiple plugins over the years, all have been acquired or shut down.
My interests span so many various areas, but I work a lot with no-code tools and open source. Always tinkering and exploring new technologies.
Why Random Adult?
For over 15 years my nickname, internet name, DJ name had been digitalchild. At the age of 40, it was time for a change. An associate bought me the domain for my birthday and after having a good laugh, I decided it was a welcome change. I’ve now rebranded my personal site to Random Adult.
What is a digitalchild you ask? To me, it’s someone that spends a lot of their time in the digital world, and that’s me. Ever since the days of dial-up.
WordPress
I started working with WordPress back in the b2Evolution days when I learned of the WordPress project. I started to build websites with WordPress 1.5 before we had custom post types, plugins were new and themes had just been introduced. Over the years I have solved a range of problems built on WordPress. These include online marketplaces, research platforms, staff training systems, intranets, dedicated apps and more.
I am a contributing member and representative of the WordPress Training team, we focus on creating learning materials for the WordPress project.
WordPress has led me to speak at numerous events, including WordCamps and local meetups. Additionally, I have co-organized meetups and actively engage with the WordPress community online, especially on Slack channels.
Technical Background
Before specializing on WordPress, I built my foundation as a systems administrator and programmer. This experience has given me a deep understanding of infrastructure, security, and scalable systems design. Over the years, I’ve worked with various operating systems, managed server clusters, and implemented automation solutions for tertiary education environments.
My programming journey spans multiple languages and paradigms. While WordPress and PHP have been a significant focus, I’ve maintained a diverse technical toolkit. In my role as Senior Developer Relations at n8n, I combine my passion for automation with education, helping developers and non-developers alike harness the power of workflow automation.
My background in systems architecture and development allows me to bridge the gap between traditional programming and modern no-code solutions, while continuing to explore emerging technologies in AI and machine learning.
Speaking
I have spoken and three WordCamps around the world, and I look forward to participating in more in the future.
WordCamp Brisbane 2015
I gave a technical talk on the WordPress CLI tool WP-CLI.
WordCamp Singapore 2019
My talk in Singapore was on the mistakes marketplaces owners can fall into.
WordCamp Europe 2023
In this workshop, I went through how to automate WordPress with no code and n8n.
Life Outside of Tech
Outside of tech, I have a range of hobbies that I pursue at various times. I love snowboarding and have been doing that for over 20 years. In 2016, I qualified as an open water scuba diver. Since then, I have dived around the world in a range of conditions and love diving. I’m a qualified rescue diver, gas blender, master diver, technical extended range side mount diver and more. I continue with my training and exploration of the underwater world.
My passion for languages has led to me having a better understanding of the world. Proficient in Vietnamese and Mandarin Chinese, which I started learning at the age of 10. I’m currently studying Spanish. This doesn’t include the countless computer languages I have learned over the years and continue to learn.
