Hey, I'm Ben

Full stack developer Technical leader PHP pro WordPress whiz Occasional designer Travel fanatic

A bit about me...

I'm a full-stack web developer with 10+ years of experience, building everything from sleek one-pagers to massive e-commerce sites - and everything in between.

I've led web teams at top digital agencies, driving projects with a focus on clean code, modern tech, and high-performance websites that help businesses thrive.

Based in Norfolk, I work remotely, building websites for agencies and clients across the UK and beyond.

Ben bottom Ben top

Master of the full stack

For over 10 years I've taken on projects of all sizes from start to finish, everything from producing scopes and quotes, building the front and back end, and even handling server management and deployments.

Obsessed with quality

I'm passionate about producing work that's clean, minimal and performant, following industry best practices and avoiding plugins as much as possible, and never relying on bloated third party themes.

Team leader and team player

Working at agencies of various sizes, I've adapted to many different approaches and processes, and taken the lead of dev teams, supporting other developers and establishing and maintaining high standards.

Always learning and improving

In a fast moving and ever-evolving industry, I'm always keen to keep my skills up to date, learning new approaches and languages, and utilising the latest tools to continue improving my work.

I've picked up a few skills...

ACF
Alpine
Buddy
cPanel
CSS
Figma
Git
GitHub
HTML
jQuery
JavaScript
Laravel
Linux
MySQL
NPM
PHP
Roots
Sass
Sketch
Statamic
Tailwind
Timber
VS Code
Vue
WooCommerce
WordPress

Gained a bit of experience...

2021 - Now

Technical Director

Making Websites Better

Leading the technical side of the business, I'm responsible for managing and supporting the development team, building our larger client projects, implementing updates and improvements to the company’s core WordPress theme and keeping our overall development approach and tech stack up to date. I also support the other directors with new business, including preparing proposals, and joining client calls and meetings.

  • Learned to use the Timber object-oriented framework for building WordPress themes, as well as learning Twig, Tailwind and AlpineJS.
  • Built a number of custom API integrations for importing/exporting data, including warehousing systems and job boards.
  • Spearheaded the company's move to a new server platform, making better use of Git version control and using Buddy for continuous deployment.
  • Introduced a much bigger focus on website performance to the company’s development process, using WP Rocket for caching, as well as updating our theme to use WebP images, lazy loading, and other optimisations to improve page speed.
  • Built the company’s largest ever web project, featuring a connected Multisite which brings together posts from across the network, and a bespoke job board with online applications.
2016 - 2021

Lead Developer

Tessellate Design Studio

Heading up the development team, I was responsible for building the company’s larger and more complex projects, as well as working with the other developers and wider team to manage projects, prepare quotes, and communicate with clients. Projects mainly used WordPress and WooCommerce, occasionally using Laravel for more bespoke applications.

  • Overhauled the development workflow to introduce local development, source control using Git, and automated deployments using Envoyer.
  • Built and maintained a base theme for WordPress, used on all projects, which included a lightweight grid framework built in Sass, plus other enhancements to improve the dev workflow.
  • Delivered the company’s largest ever project, a WooCommerce site with 300,000+ products, API integrations, and other bespoke features such as finance calculators and a pre-order system.
  • Introduced Laravel and delivered the first project, a custom app featuring Google API integration.
  • Provided regular maintenance and updates for hosted sites, as well as configuring security and performance enhancements such as caching, CDNs and image enhancements.
2016

Web Developer

Angling Direct

Maintaining and developing their Magento online store, including updating existing modules and creating new modules in line with Magento standards and conventions.

  • Gained an introduction to Magento and developed some bespoke modules for the website, including a photo competition and voting system.
  • Introduced source control and automated deployments to the workflow, using Git and Deploybot.
2015 - 2016

DevOps Engineer

Hire A Lite

Development and maintenance of a large internal system built in Laravel, MySQL and CoffeeScript. Implementing new feature requests and bug fixes from the wider team.

  • Gained significant experience using Laravel 5 to build new features and improvements to an in-house application used to run the business.
  • Learned to use Git for version control and zero downtime deployments.
2014 - 2015

Web Developer

Metalfrog Studios

Developing and maintaining PHP websites for businesses of varying sizes. Liasing with clients throughout development and providing CMS training. Also managing hosting and email services for clients.

  • Gained my first experience of building bespoke sites using WordPress and WooCommerce.
  • Delivered a custom PHP website using an in-house MVC framework for former "Dragon's Den" dragon Theo Paphitis, and attended an event with over 500 people to oversee the launch.
  • Learned to handle website launches and manage hosting accounts using cPanel and WHM.

And built some pretty awesome projects...

Howard & Son mockup
WordPress
WooCommerce
Roots Stack
ACF
Sketch

A new online presence for an established local business

Design and build of a new WooCommerce store featuring delivery and collection options, allowing them to sell their full range of fresh products online. Built using the Roots Bedrock stack.

Cameron Reid mockup
WordPress
WooCommerce
Roots Stack
ACF
Sketch

Bringing two websites together into one distinct brand

Design and build of a new website, bringing together both the clinic and training areas of their business, complete with paid online courses powered by WooCommerce Sensei. Built using Roots Bedrock stack.

Options Group mockup
WordPress
WooCommerce
Timber
ACF
Tailwind

A large multisite network for an international business

Built a WordPress Multisite network, with 14+ sites, featuring a main site showing news and job listings from across the network, plus WooCommerce for selling digital downloads. Built using Timber framework.

Rocket Pod mockup
WordPress
WooCommerce
Timber
ACF
Tailwind

A fully integrated website for selling digital subscriptions

Built a WooCommerce store selling a range of subscription plans for their apps, and integrating with a custom API built by the client to manage subscription sign ups, cancellations and plan switches.

Zolb Mockup
WordPress
Timber
ACF
Tailwind
Alpine JS

A fresh design with a powerful, flexible CMS

Built a new WordPress site which balances a striking design with a flexible CMS using the WordPress block editor and ACF blocks, and featuring a profit calculator using Alpine JS.

Like what you see?

If you’d like to get in touch, you can find me on LinkedIn...

LinkedIn

Or you can drop me an email...