Alan Hill

I've been in IT for over 20 years, the first half as a perm for a major bank, the rest as a front end/CMS contractor for a multitude of clients, industries and projects. I think (hope) what sets me apart from other contractors is that it's never really been purely about the code for me - which is why I find front end dev so attractive, it's more about the process you go through to get to the final solution - right from stakeholder meetings, gathering requirements, feeding back on designs, the to and fro with stakeholders, technical peers and users.

Don't get me wrong, when it comes time to convert it into code I think I'm as good as any contractor when it comes to using best practices, adherence to standards, taking on new techniques and learning from others, but the code and testing is to me the one part of the jigsaw from ideas, through design, delivery and then review and analysis (are people using it the way we think they are going to use it).

CMS systems like Umbraco, Optimizely(formerly EpiServer) and SiteCore again are a great arena to have those conversations about not just the design and UI of the finished web page/site, but what it's like to create and crucially maintain that website - that's why my best memories I feel are those where I've been able to really solve a problem that saves a content editor from a monotonous, repeat process, or saves the company actual cash in reducing the time to make a series or batch of time critical changes.

All in all it's about problem solving for me - UX/UI problems, content editing problems, device/browser problems (looking at you Safari and IE4!). I love problem solving - tell me the problem, what you think "success" looks like, tell me who I can discuss it with and I love coming up with the solution, either as part of a team, or by myself.