Mike Foskett

Front-End Developer – problem-solving technologist

Email: available on request

Tel: available on request

Address: Welwyn Garden City

LinkedIn:

Website:

Portfolio:

Coding:

Summary

Front-End Web Developer with a focus on helping businesses grow through technology.

Produced award-winning tesco.com, an expert at user-centric design, page performance, Standards, Optimisation, Accessibility, Usability, and Inclusion to drive user retention and deliver top-line growth. Experience with major corporate brands (10 years at Tesco in various positions), and public sector (7 years with Becta - British Educational Communications and Technology Agency).

Managed a Tesco front-end coding team in a role involving coding as well as delivering training, mentoring and guidance on front-end technologies to support organisational goals. Highly motivated and flexible, brings excellent communication, stakeholder relationship and organisational skills.

Key Skills

  • HTML, CSS, JavaScript (APIs, AJAX, REST, JSON), SVG, XML, ASP, PHP, Assembly.
  • Accessibility (WCAG 2, WAI-ARIA), Performance & optimisation, Usability, Inclusion, Web Standards, Interaction.
  • Geo-location / mapping (Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook).
  • User Experience, User Journey, User Acquisition & Retention.
  • Online video delivery, interactive components, parallax, animations.

Experience

Senior Front-End Developer (contract)

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Welwyn Garden City

  • Continually improved tesco.com page performances (site structure, navigation, page load time, content handling, accessibility, usability), driving increased customer visits and retention.
  • Developed custom page designs (mobile-first, responsive, animated, parallax) to tight deadlines.
  • Researched peers, benchmarked page performance against best in class sites, prepared presentations for performance and accessibility improvements, secured senior stakeholder buy-in for implementation.
  • Produced Accessible JavaScript widgets. Implemented Omniture Data Layer Analytics.
  • Managed international coding team of 5, conducted regular training and mentoring in new code and apps, hires and trains new developers.
  • Optimised tesco.com to be the fastest performing page in class (283K in 1-second on-load, 1.4Mb total page), used by peers as an example of best practice.
  • Developed Tesco’s Store Locator (Tesco’s first mobile-first development) and inspirational pages.
  • Used lean coding and site navigation skills to design pages that support sales and marketing by delivering cross-sell opportunities without interfering with user journeys to Grocery assets.
  • Used Accessibility and Usability skills to maximise customer lock-in and drive site traffic to 2 M visits per week.

Front-End Web Developer (contract)

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Welwyn Garden City

  • Hired to improve all Tesco online estates with enhanced performance, accessibility and usability.
  • Developed award-winning Tesco homepage and grocery, recognised by RNIB award.
  • Optimised pages improving load-times and increasing efficiency (e.g. compression, post-loading, content re-use).
  • Conducted internal training to drive a culture of accessibility and usability awareness through development teams.

Accessibility & Web Standards Consultant (contract)

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Warwick Science Park

  • Contract extended to deliver training, guidance and mentoring on Accessibility and Web Standards in the education, special needs and local government sectors.
  • Produced high-quality interactive training materials to supplement training seminars and workshops.
  • Maximised presence of Becta’s Schools websites across the UK by re-coding and optimising for search and UX.
  • Improved performance and efficiency and cut maintenance costs for 40+ sites by migrating to XHTML and table-less design, and simplifying the CMS(s).

Web Developer & Inclusion Tester (contract)

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Warwick Science Park

  • Hired to audit, test and re-build websites with accessibility and usability standards mandated for inclusion into the Governments NGfL (National Grid for Learning).
  • Resolved cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility issues.
  • Redeveloped sites with hand-coded accessible design in (X)HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Web Designer & Developer

–

Wolverhampton

  • Designed and developed web solutions including e-commerce applications running Actinic software.
  • Optimised front-end and campaign landing pages for search engine and placement strategies.
  • Implemented CSS, JavaScript & DHTML methodologies.

Education