We asked our Frontend Developer Emma what inspired her to start working with Umbraco

We have an amazing team of Umbraco developers here at Spindogs and our team just keeps on developing their skills and knowledge when it comes to Umbraco. We are proud to have five Umbraco developers in our team who have the skills and expertise to develop custom websites that suit our clients needs and deliver results.

We want to take five to celebrate our Frontend developer, Emma’s successes. In the past few months, Emma has passed her Umbraco Certified Professional and Umbraco Accessibility training with 100% in both! We grabbed Emma for a quick Q&A to find out a little more about how she got into Frontend development and where the inspiration to start working with Umbraco came from.

J: How did you get into Frontend development?

E: I started getting interested in the internet almost as soon as we got it at home in the 90’s. I learned how to write HTML in my spare time as a teen, and even though I went to university for interior design first, I still kept up with web design as a hobby. I ended up switching once I realised I was far more passionate about digital design. Since then my roles have always been somewhat blended, even when working as a designer there’s always been some HTML and CSS involved. It’s only in the last 5 years or so I’ve really got into a pure development role.

J: What do you enjoy most about working in development?

E: I get a real sense of achievement from making things work! I enjoy Frontend because I can still utilise my creativity and eye for detail in replicating our designer’s work, and helping to make their designs come to life is very satisfying. You can achieve some really awesome things with Frontend technology and it’s great to be able to put that into practice.

J: What inspired you to start working with Umbraco?

E: Umbraco was present at my last place of work, however I never got to see much more than a content editor’s perspective. It always seemed very nice and clean, and easy to use. It wasn’t until I joined Spindogs that it was presented to me as an opportunity to learn how to work more in the back end, which was intimidating at first but I am really enjoying it.

J: You recently became an Umbraco Certified Professional, how did you become an Umbraco Certified Professional?

E: I sat my Fundamentals course back in April, which went over all of the basics and earned me enough points to receive Certified Professional status

J: On top of becoming an Umbraco Certified Professional you’ve recently passed the Umbraco Accessibility training (with full marks), congratulations. What is Accessibility? And what have you learnt about Umbraco Accessibility from taking part in the training?

E: Thank you! Accessibility is about making the web usable for everyone, including people with permanent or temporary disabilities. It involves making sure that websites are properly designed and coded so that there are minimal barriers to users regardless of their ability. The Umbraco course provided a good general overview of how this can be achieved, as well as some interesting tips and tricks that are specific to Umbraco!

J: What do you love about being part of the Umbraco Community?

E: The people I have interacted with at Umbraco itself are always very friendly and personable. There is a lot of support available from them, other developers and loads of information out there on the web. I recently had the opportunity to write an article for Skrift magazine alongside my team leader Sian which was definitely a highlight – and I’m excited to start contributing more through our internal Umbraco Initiative here at Spindogs.