Between a young family, home improvements, a beagle and a toy cockapoo pomeranian mix, Max has a busy homelife! Besides discovering his love of a good spicy curry, an ice cold Corrs light and a good thriller, we chatted about his road to StrategiQ and his experience so far.
“I started developing at a pretty young age as a hobby when I was about 12. I enjoyed playing around with sites and realised I could actually pursue what I loved as a career. I didn’t go to uni because by college I knew what needed to be done and went straight into a Junior Dev role, from which I was promoted within 6 months. I guess when you find your passion and you spend all of your time doing it, you get pretty proficient!
I’ve worked in a couple of agencies before StrategiQ. One specialising in WordPress, another building bespoke developments and plugins from scratch using an array of PHP, Javascript and JQuery skills. One of the agencies had a sister company that produced a magazine, I got involved in maintaining their site which whet my appetite for bigger projects and led to a spell working in the adtech industry.
It was fascinating to see behind the scenes of what essentially was a clickbait generator. They used a network of WordPress sites with blog articles to entice users to spend more time on the page, being exposed to various ads. During this time I was able to expand my skills and build new architecture with a headless setup which is something we’re doing at StrategiQ too. I also started developing new solutions such as a package to get a new sub-site up in as little as 15 minutes. One of my highlights was building a backend symfony PHP system to manage campaigns and use algorithms to change CPC and other metrics based on site performance and user value.
I’m classically somebody who enjoys helping and problem solving. Having progressed to Lead Developer roles, what I’ve loved most about them is being able to mentor junior developers. It takes you back to your roots and gives you an opportunity to refresh your memory. It’s really satisfying to support people in their career progression.
I came to StrategiQ looking for adventure, hungry to work on bigger projects and applications. It’s been a really exciting first six months where I’ve felt able to pitch ideas that have been enthusiastically green-lit such as my suggestion to employ a new modular site setup. There’s not only an appetite for innovation, they truly support you to get on with great ideas. Quite honestly, it’s my first experience of that.
I’ve really enjoyed working alongside Dan on a recent headless project and have got some great projects on the go with a stimulating level of complexity. I’ve joined the AI Council and am loving being able to bring in ideas from previous experience, such as incorporating AI into our paid ad setup. I really appreciate the 1:1 coaching and weekly goal setting, which I find really satisfying. Andy’s a really inspirational leader, I love his forward vision, drive and determination for the companies growth and success. They not only have ambition, they’re bold enough to do what’s necessary to achieve it which makes it an exciting place to be. I’ve always wanted to work for a London agency where I could spread my wings a bit and I’ve found that in StrategiQ!
What colleagues say about Max:
“I may be biased due to working with him so closely, but he has been working tirelessly to get this project into the best state possible with limited discovery and time. It’s been a rocky road but we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel thanks to your hard work!”
“Max hasn’t been with the company for too long, but is making big contributions across the board. Always happy to help anyone in the team, debug issues and offer ideas – Max is doing some great work and I look forward to seeing some of the ideas come to life. Keep it up Max!”
“Max has made a great impression on me during his first month in the dev team, he’s been extremely helpful with day to day tasks especially when it comes to helping members of the team, speaking up when we are all looking for a solution. He is always up for a challenge and I’m looking forward to working with him in the future. Smashing first month Max!”
“Talk about hitting the ground running! It’s hard to think that Max hasn’t even been with us a month at the time of writing this. He rolled up his sleeves and dove straight in – from delivering the enhancements on one site, to supporting and starting the build on new tools, and it’s only been 3 weeks?! In the short time he has been here, Max has already proven he has great attention to detail, is excellent at communicating and providing updates to the team and willing to support and help out any of the other developers when in need, he’s already proving to be an invaluable member of the team. Keep up the great work Max!”
“As soon as he joined the team, Max began to make meaningful contributions to the projects he’s been a part of, immediately understanding and fixing aspects of sites, and even suggesting improvements to code and functionality. ♪ You’re gonna go far, kid ♪”
