Rowley Macklin

Frontend Developer + , and Junior Designer
Hello! I'm Rowley, a frontend developer and I enjoy building accessible, pixel-perfect experiences for the web. I take pride in having a sharp eye for the little details that separate a good product from an exceptional one. I really enjoy working where design meets engineering, where great user experience meets clean, scalable code.
One of the many things I love about the work I do is constantly learning. No two projects are the same and I take a pragmatic approach to each job I take on, focussing on delivering code that is as accessible and optimised as possible.

De Beers

May 2021 - Jul 2026

Lead Frontend developer

I worked as the Lead Frontend Developer on a huge variety of really enjoyable tasks. I was with De Beers for nearly 6 years and enjoyed every single project and task. I had some great achievements here, including: Optimising the rendered media (Videos + Images) by 50%, introducing new visual documentation for new developers and for all teams to have visibility of the whole code eco-system, introducing GSAP animation to pages, creating a new local environment, re-writing the whole frontend and Amplience codebase for easier readability and optimisation. And of course exciting new campaigns every month, which I call the bread and butter of my work.

Proudest of: Proudest of: Optimising global media by introducing high media compression (image and video) for page performance, as well as numerous other tasks. Most image and video file sizes reduced by 50%.

View project

Autosport

Mar 2019 - Feb 2021

Frontend developer

I was initially contracted for three months at Autosport to help integrate and style the new Piano digital business platform. Admittedly, it was a challenging first few weeks getting to grips with Piano but that made it all the more enjoyable and I hit the ground running. Let’s just say, the Piano documentation reads like War & Peace 2 (very long). As I loved working here and Autosport had piles of outstanding work, they extended the contract multiple times. Sadly, because of the Covid-19 crisis affecting most racing events and budgets, my contract wasn’t extended.

Proudest of: Learning the Piano Content Experience Platform at pace and implementing styling and layout changes within Piano for the content team.

View project

Mulberry

Sept 2016 - Dec 2018

Frontend developer

I was working at Mulberry for rolling 3 month contracts for each main chunk of tasks. The first task was to set up and style the main Mulberry components in Amplience so the content editors could easily update products, text, product images, videos and pricing ranges. As I was new to Amplience it was a very challenging first few weeks, but really enjoyable getting stuck into a new experience. The last task was to re-vamp the global site and components. Outside of Amplience the core of the site was within Hybris, which I’d worked with before. Fantastic place to work, with the added bonus of being a 20-minute walk from home when I lived in Central London.

Proudest of: Learning Amplience CMS and creating a new codebase to add to Amplience. I had to hit the road running as I'd never used Amplience before.

View project

TKMaxx

Jan 2016 - Jul 2016

Lead Frontend Developer

TKMaxx was refreshing their global site to a new Hybris environment. My main role was to set up the front end environment, lead the front end team and create some of the new components. As well as advise various in-house teams on integration and running Hybris. It’s always nice to start a project from Discovery Phase 1, to get a full picture of requirements and to see the project grow right from the start.

Proudest of: For discovery phase and sprint 1, I had to set up the front end environment using Gulp as the task runner and Git as version control within Hybris Accelerator. This was my first time to set everything up myself. A daunting, but enjoyable task.

View project

Gucci

Aug 2014 - Dec 2015

Lead Frontend Developer

This was the most challenging, and therefore my favourite role by far. I was lead front end for over a year here and it was the most intense project I’d ever worked on. As Gucci is a luxury brand, they were understandably very particular about the look and feel of the site. This made the work extra challenging but very rewarding in the end, which I loved. Gucci were switching their global site over to a new Hybris environment. My main role was to review the static code provided by the Gucci in-house designers and developers. Then convert them to Hybris working code.

Proudest of: Optimising the provided code for efficiency and also for compatibility within Hybris. And as a bonus, the whole site went live slightly earlier than expected.

View project

Goodyear

Feb 2014 - Aug 2014

Frontend Developer

Goodyear were switching their global site over to a new Hybris environment. My main role was to review the static code provided by off-shore designers and developers in Costa Rica. Then I integrated the code within Hybris. This was a brilliant contract role as I not only started from Discovery Phase 1 to Production, but as a little bonus it was based in Boston, USA (pronounced locally as Bwoaaastan). It was the first time I’d worked abroad and even though I arrived during the coldest winter they’d experienced in 1,000 years (apparently); I loved it.

Proudest of: Optimising the provided code for efficiency. Helping to train all departments in how to work with Hybris Accelerator. And of course, surviving the arctic conditions of mid-Winter Boston.

View project

Sainsbury's Tu

Dec 2013 - Feb 2014

Frontend Developer

I joined the project from sprint 4 to sprint 9, then was switched over to the Goodyear project in Boston. Most of my Jira tasks were converting flat designs to semantic code: all the form elements and hero components. As well as some bug fixing.

Proudest of: Producing very functional forms perfectly matching designs and vision.

View project

Barbour

Nov 2013 - Dec 2013

Frontend Developer

I came into the Barbour project just before phase 2 production release, the last two sprints. Most of my daily tasks were bug fixing and problem solving and just generally supporting the front end team before production. I really enjoyed this role as it was ‘all hands on deck’ for bug fixing within Hybris, with a limited time constraint.

Proudest of: Hitting the ground running understanding the project and codebase and fixing many varied bugs: functional, styling, accessibility and optimisation.

View project

Dr Martens

May 2013 - Oct 2013

Designer | Lead Frontend Developer

I created new wireframes and designs based on notes and requirements from the client. I then converted these to code directly within Hybris. I really enjoyed this role as I joined from the start of Discovery Phase 1 all the way to production and beyond. As well as writing the code, I created the base designs to work from for the client. Being my first delve into the Hybris world, I had to learn extremely quickly. Hybris documentation being notoriously scarce, I had to learn the hard way. This proved extremely challenging, but very rewarding.

Proudest of: The designs came out really well and was appreciated by the client: focussing on the black and yellow colour theme and large, over-bold text to represent the strength of Dr Martens footwear. Ultimately, the whole project was released to production on time.

View project

Various

Jan 2000 - Apr 2013

Designer | Web Designer | Web Analyst | Frontend Developer

This was an amazing and varied period of work in my life. Ranging from logo designing, leaflet designing, old school web designing, web analysis and eventually frontend development.

Proudest of: Working at Cisco Systems was probably the most impactful role I've ever had, as I learned a whole set of new skill sets. This ranged from meetings etiquette to managing a team of remote developers, as well as real world frontend development within a very large corporation. The work here set me until now. Also, in hindsight it was interesting creating vanilla CSS without the use of SCSS/ SASS or preprocessors, as this was before SASS was introduced globally.

View project

About Me

Hello! I'm Rowley, a frontend developer and I enjoy building accessible, pixel-perfect experiences for the web. I take pride in having a sharp eye for the little details that separate a good product from an exceptional one. I really enjoy working where design meets engineering, where great user experience meets clean, scalable code.

One of the many things I love about the work I do is constantly learning. No two projects are the same and I take a pragmatic approach to each job I take on, focussing on delivering code that is as accessible and optimised as possible.

In my last role at De Beers, I was Lead Frontend Developer where I worked on creating new, accessible components and implementing them within the Amplience CMS. I lead engineering efforts across our component library and CMS platform, partnering closely with designers, the frontend team, BA, Business and QA.

In my spare time you can usually find me hanging out with my wife and two children, going to the gym, reading, watching great and terrible films, researching music history or flying around Azeroth in World of Warcraft, in search of rare herbs and quests.

Notting Hill

Growing up in Notting Hill, London built the foundation of who I am now. Being such an ethnically diverse area of London, I easily absorbed local cultures, which ultimately inspired my interest in different cultures and a lust for travel. In some ways, this also translated to my work ethic; being more open to changes, empathy and adaptability.

How a Video Game Changed My Life

During the winter of 1998, on a whim, I bought the game Half-Life. I wasn't a gamer in any way before this, but had read some rave reviews. Once I started playing, it had me hooked. Then, with the release of Counterstrike and Team Fortress, I discovered you could change the controls, settings and configs with simple lines of code. This intrigued me immensely, and I wanted to learn more. After becoming quite the expert in configs and creating my own skins for the game, I had an epiphany moment. I wanted to transfer this enthusiasm to the web and somehow do a job that I have a real passion for.

Rather than try to enrol at Uni as a senior, I compressed my learning with a Newmedia course at a local college. As well as finishing the course there and helping the tutors with a new batch of students in class, I also bought a pile of study books: JavaScript, HTML, CSS and Design Principles. So began my entry to Design and ultimately frontend development.

And So It Begins...

While I was a tutor's assistant, the college offered me my first actual work. It all started with the annual Portobello Film Festival site. I was lucky enough to be trusted with the design and development of this project.

They immediately offered me more work for some fantastic clients: NHK Japan and Nikkei NEEDS. These were life-changing projects which ultimately earned me my first full-time role as a designer and Web Designer at Supply Serve Ltd.