My name is Paul Michael Smith, I live in Middleton within rainy Manchester, in the north of England.
When I’m not coding I can generally be found drinking a disproportionate amount of strong milky tea in the company of Gillian (my much better half) and our amazing little slinky dog Jake.
Professional
I’m a Senior Front-end Developer.
I currently work for the Business Transformation Group within the digital user experience directorate of HMG’s Department for Work & Pensions.
2008 - 2016
Prior to joining government in 2016 I spent nearly 10 years as a freelancer/contractor running my own limited company. “Airfront Media”.
As a freelancer I worked for some of the world’s brightest digital agencies & media companies, such as: Optical Cortex (Area17), BBC, Lime Pictures, Toyota/Lexus, Manchester United, Code Computerlove, Netmums.com, Oxfam, Amaze and many more.
I shared an office in Manchester’s digital heart with the lovely chaps of Anything.agency and worked with other freelance collectives to deliver some amazing work. Lots of which I’m not permitted to publicly disclose (sadly because it was ground braking stuff).
Pre 2008
Before contracting I worked for the BBC as a Front-end Developer within Manchester’s historic Oxford Road building (Now sadly demolished). I worked specifically for BBC Entertainment building sites for brands like Dragon’s Den, DanceX, Street Doctor and other entertainment shows.
The BBC then moved to streamline it’s online offering which is when I was joined the “Future Media & Technology Department” contributing to bbc.co.uk/programmes and helping to contribute to what would eventually became the BBC’s Global Experience Language.
I’ll write this and tidy the code and visuals when I get more time. Follow me on Twitter.