Yeah, it's a cutesy title for customer support because you can't take yourself too seriously in jobs like this. Put very simply, people are fucking ass holes (and yes - you have to acknowledge this to excel at being a "Happiness Engineer" - it's not cynical to recognize that people have angry outbursts, because you have to know how to calm them down; pretending that people aren't mean is a one-way ticket to burnout). Even "nice" people can be ass holes; humans are complex and represent a whole spectrum of emotions [0]. Sometimes they don't know they're doing it, sometimes they do. There are social differences (what someone on the West Coast thinks is rude is not the same as what someone on the East Coast thinks is rude, and there are even difference between "microcultures" on the rules of social engagement; these rules might be intersubjective, but differ) that have to be negotiated often in one-time ephemeral interactions. Negativity is contagious and I cringe at the times that I unnecessarily injected negativity into an interaction where the other person/people didn't do anything to deserve it.

I think there is maybe one other "weird" job title in that list, but otherwise they're all pretty normal, so this is probably one of the last things I'd criticize Automattic for. The fact that they describe customer support as "Happiness Engineering" suggests the nature of the title - we have to be a little goofy to help people.

As a final note, for anyone thinking "I work in customer support and I don't like this yada yada", it's just not for you, and that's OK. No need to think up a huge rebuttal, it's just a different philosophy for those of us who like to help people and have a little bit of fun at the same time.

I don't work at Automattic, but I like WordPress and don't really care too much about this drama.

[0]: https://feelingswheel.com/