Summary
I'm a web developer who specialises in front end / client side programming, who can program in JavaScript and PHP/MySQL. Already proficient in PHP, I am now looking to start specialising in backend programming after spending the past 2 years perfecting my client side skills.
Skills
Skills I have at the moment:
| Skill | Level of proficiency |
|---|---|
| (X)HTML | Expert (still waiting for HTML5 to be practical) |
| CSS 1/2/3 | Expert |
| JavaScript / ECMAScript | Advanced |
| jQuery | Expert |
| Accessibility Testing & Fixing | Advanced |
| SEO (is a myth) | Advanced (though SEO is pretty much dead) |
| PHP & MySQL | Intermediate |
| XSL/XSLT | Intermediate |
| Photoshop (image optimising) | Advanced |
| Photoshop (design) | Intermediate |
| Coffee Brewing | Ninja |
Skills I'm eager to improve or learn:
| Skill | Target |
|---|---|
| PHP & MySQL | Work on a larger website or application with a framework, or author my own. I also want the opportunity to write a 2 page long SQL query and then gloat about it to my friends. |
| JavaScript | Author a few widgets or tie in rich client side functionality with a CMS of my own. |
| SOAP | I've never used SOAP before, and don't want to use it for the first time on yet-another-mundane-twitter-application. One day it'll come... |
How I got here
Starting off
I started web design at the un-ripe age of 12, about a year after I got a new computer and an internet connection. Through basic networking I found a lot of my friends today through web design communities which helped me develop my skill at the trade, and to learn new languages and techniques.
I ended up registering the domain avengex.com, after my now-defunct internet moniker and developed it into a thriving web development community while going to school. The website itself was coded in PHP and served its purpose very nicely as a sandbox, teaching me basic OOP PHP and MySQL. It went through several iterations until my GCSEs hit me in the face, leaving the site unmaintained and hung out to dry.
Mini freelance career
After my GCSEs were over, I did some proper freelance work in the 12 weeks before starting college, and this is when I turned "professional." I found most of my clients through SitePoint or DigitalPoint (long before good old StackOverflow came along!) but this wasn't a necessity for long as I found that word of mouth had finally caught on!
Eventually I ended up going to college while freelancing and working on several projects for SoftForge. I found that after 6 months, I was having so much fun, learning lots, and practising my passion and hobby as a profession, I chucked college in and went all-in for proper freelancing in 2008.
Throughout freelancing in 2008 I worked with SoftForge, who were contracted by a design agency to do backend work in PHP with the Joomla CMS until May, whilst continuing my personal freelance projects. I also had the pleasure of working with one of the best designers and illustrators I've yet to meet, Ade Gower, from Monster Creations to work on several entertainment act related websites.
Working at OLM Group
After about a year of freelancing mostly on my own in a small environment, I thought it would be best to start working with other people again. Late 2008 was a bad time to be looking for jobs, but luckily I found a decent contract in December with OLM Group, a supplier of social care IT solutions to local authorities. I was initially contracted for 2 months, and now I've been working at OLM Group now for over a year, having worked on the frontend interfaces for several products as well as some of the subsidary company websites.
I've picked up a load of new skills from OLM as well as having the time to develop my own, to name but a few: JavaScript, accessibility testing with JAWS, designing for usability in web applications.. and more.