Steph is third in our meet the team series, although was our first external hire – what a learning experience for a new MD! Steph is a fantastic junior developer with a keen eye for design, and is our first port of call for anything that needs a more creative touch.
Jem Turner, Managing Director
Hi, I’m Steph! I’m a Junior WordPress Developer at Ultimately Better. I’m not a copywriter – when you hire us I’ll be keeping your WordPress site up to date with the latest plugins or collaborating with my teammates to optimise your UX design, not writing content. But here’s my best attempt at introducing myself!
I’m proud to say that I was the first junior developer hired at Ultimately Better. At the time I couldn’t believe my luck, as a new mother and self-taught web developer, finding a remote-first microagency that was willing to give me a chance to work flexibly. In the year and a half since then, I’ve watched with pride as UB has grown into an internal team of six, plus a handful of excellent freelancers. I’ve seen firsthand how much we’ve expanded the range of services we can offer our clients, from development to design to SEO. And I’ve had the amazing experience of witnessing the formation of a people-first company culture that I’m really proud to be a part of.
UB is a diverse, tight-knit team of UK-based experts from all walks of life. Each and every one of us is a self-proclaimed WordPress nerd, and when a job needs doing we all muck in. All my colleagues are quick to hop on a video chat and, frankly, geek out over how best to serve our clients’ needs. We’ve all got a genuine enthusiastic interest in every aspect of our client’s WordPress sites, from the “big picture” impression that the homepage design makes, all the way down to nitpicky details and the way the code is organised in the theme.json file. (That’s basically the bit of code that tells WordPress about the stylistic choices you want to show in the editor when you’re creating a new page or writing a blog post – let us worry about it for you! We’re into that kind of thing!) I’ll be honest, I may be updating your website at 6:30am in my pajamas with a huge coffee in hand. But I think we gain a lot by skipping out on the office-and-collared-shirt stuff. The focus here is on what really matters: our websites, the clients who need them, and the people who build them.
On many occasions I’ve been in deep discussion about which web-friendly fonts best serve a client’s brand identity (Genuinely! We do get excited about that stuff here!) while also holding a sleeping baby in my lap. My son is just over a year old now, and UB has always been so incredibly supportive of my need to juggle the responsibilities of work and motherhood. I’ll be honest, it’s been difficult to balance, and when I reflect on the past year I’m not sure I could have managed with any other employer. But UB has always treated me as a valuable human being, not just a number. With flexible hours and a workplace culture of supportive camaraderie, we’ve always been able to make it work, and that’s something I’ll always be grateful for.
So who else am I, besides the person who will keep your site up to date? I’m originally from America and now live in the East Midlands countryside with my husband, son, and our little black rescue cat. I taught myself to code in my spare time because I was tired of working in a charity shop. When I’m not at work I like to unplug and get out into nature. You’ll find me getting mud on my boots and showing my toddler all the different textures that moss and tree bark can have. Or, realistically, as a mom, you might find me back at home doing my millionth round of laundry and dishes and mopping. Or maybe you’ll find me later, with a cup of peppermint-liquorice tea, getting lost in a good book. I love to read, even though I’m a slow reader. Right now I’m rereading The Hobbit for some much-needed escapism. That’s basically me: just one small part of our fantastic Ultimately Better team.