Why choose me?
Like other skilled front-end developers, I have experience with HTML5, CSS3, SASS, jQuery, and all the other usual techie acronyms (my resume has all the details if you need them). But acronyms can’t tell the whole story!
Early in my career, I was the sole developer at a sucessful small agency, and there was too much work coming in for me to code everything myself. So for one particular project, I subcontracted to a developer I’d worked with before—I knew he was smart, savvy, and had the skills I needed.
Partway through the project, he disappeared! My stress levels rose, my unanswered calls and emails grew increasingly frantic, and my heart sank as I realized I had two choices: I could work nights and weekends to finish the project myself (atop my already heavy workload), or I could tell my boss that the site wasn’t ready, and take the blame (I chose the extra work—that's just the way I roll).
That experience made a big impression on me. When I started my own business, I vowed that my clients would never go through that! Since then, I’ve built my reputation on what I call my four pillars of excellence:
Reliability
“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”
I work hard to make your job easier! Project managers like not having to worry about my deadlines; I stick to the schedule and communicate with the team often to keep everyone up-to-date. Designers like not having to worry that their coded design will come back mangled; I strive to stay true to their creative vision. Technical managers like not having to worry about the quality of the code they’ll receive, well-commented and ready to integrate.
And me? I love helping my clients look good for their clients (or bosses) by always delivering on time—or even early!—and I’m always a quick phone call or an email away if you need me.
Experience
“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”
It’s been said that “Experience is the best teacher.” I cut my teeth on Mosaic and the very first versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer, and have adapted to each change that browser makers have thrown at us, from then until now. Need your website to support Internet Explorer, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, iPhone, Android and iPad? No problem. I’m never prouder than when a quality assurance team says (with amazement), “We couldn’t find any bugs!”
My attention to detail and this long experience means that I deliver a solid, browser-tested final product so that your visitors will see the website you intend.
Quality
“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”
When deadlines loom and the pressure is on, it’s tempting to take coding shortcuts to just “get it done.” I take pride in always going the extra mile to create well-crafted, standards compliant pages using semantic code, be it HTML5, XHTML, CSS or Javascript. That little extra effort to plan it out and think ahead means that your website will be easier to maintain, easier to access, and should even get better results from search engines.
With me, quality is king—and it saves you time and money when you know it will be done right the first time!
Teamwork
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
I speak your language: the language of teamwork. You already know you need a solid code-slinger. Why not choose someone who can also discuss typography, kerning, and grids with a design team, and who can speak Agile, OOP, and CMS integration with a back-end technical team? Not only that—I even enjoy presenting to clients.
For me, development is most satisfying when I can collaborate with you as a long-term partner, act as a technical advisor and put your mind at ease.
But as Levar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow, “You don’t have to take my word for it!” Seeing is believing, after all...