About Me

This was my first professional role as a Web Developer. Admittedly, I came into this role a little weak and rusty in terms of my web skills. I had just spent the previous year job-hunting and continuing to work at Waitrose, without doing much to maintain my knowledge of web development.

Nevertheless, I went in to the role determined to regain my skills and expand on my knowledge. This all began with... cropping thousands of pictures of kids for a 'Face of Pixifoto' competition? Not quite what I had in mind, but a necessary task to help out at the time.

Once the competition was rolling, I could finally get back into development. Initially this started with small projects, such as a social footer component to display links to various social media along with a live Twitter feed, but by the end of my time at Pixifoto I was building entire promotional landing pages, as well as the Marketing Emails that linked to them.

This role really helped me to get going again and gave me a solid foundation for my core web skills, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I also learnt a lot about responsive design and using frameworks such as Foundation.

After the unfortunate closure of Pixifoto, I was left job-hunting again. Not wanting to let my skills deteriorate, I put a lot more effort into finding my next role, which eventually led to me finding Bluestep Solutions.

I was initially hesitant about an agency job, as working as an internal developer on a singular website had felt like a very safe way to develop my skills. Regardless, I went into the role ready to prove myself and learn even more.

My initial tasks started off quite small, mostly just building individual pages that a Senior Developer would then stitch together. As time went on, I learnt more about taking a website from concept to final product and eventually began working on projects as the lead developer. I learnt to work with Graphic Designers to round out beautiful designs, as well as with Account Managers to plan projects and keep clients up to date.

The main skill that I learnt during my time at Bluestep was utilising Wordpress to create websites. Due to it's pre-existing backend, Wordpress became my go-to solution for creating a website that the client could independently keep up-to-date, long after the project is complete.

My time at Bluestep helped round me out as a much more competent developer, and saw me work with a number of clients, including MMG, Fenston & Cromwell and Isaac Mercer. I was also introduced to the process of building a full website, from initial client meeting, through wireframes, stylescapes and the build, and finally pushing the website live. I also found that I much preferred working with multiple clients, versus my previous job, as it gave me a lot more variety in what I was building.