The person behind the work

Hi, I'm Federica.

I build websites for people who've been talked down to by the web industry. The ones paying every month for a site they can't edit, or quoted thousands for work they can't see. My job is to make the whole thing make sense, and then hand you the keys.

Tell me about your projectSee the work
Federica on a boat in Faro, Portugal
Based in
Woking, Surrey
Previously
Lead UX Engineer, IBM
Builds in
Next.js, by hand
Also made
juuno, my own app

Why I started this

It started with my mum and a stack of invoices.

She runs a small business, and over the years she paid a string of SEO consultants to help her get found online. Every one of them did the same thing. They told her everything she was doing wrong, handed her a report full of red, and left. Not one of them told her how to actually fix it.

That sat badly with me. Tech should be something you can understand, not a wall of jargon used to make you feel small so you keep paying. The web is one of the most important parts of any business now. If you don't have the technical knowledge, growing online becomes either impossible or expensive. It shouldn't be either.

So I built Made by Federica to sit in the gap nobody covers well. You've validated your idea, you know what your business needs, and now you want a technical person to hand it to. Someone who'll deal with the database backups and the API rate limits so you never have to think about the words “database backup” again. You run the business. I'll run the build.

How I got here

An engineer who actually cares what users want.

I came at the web from the technical side first, then spent years learning what makes people actually use the thing you build. That combination is the whole point. Most of the web is built by people who understand one or the other.

  1. 01

    Electronic engineering at Manchester

    I studied electrical and electronic engineering. It taught me to take a complicated system apart, work out what each piece does, and explain it plainly. That habit never left.

  2. 02

    Taught myself to build, properly

    During lockdown I learned full-stack development and built a handful of games in Unity, for the love of it. Code stopped being theory and became something I could ship.

  3. 03

    IBM, developer to Lead UX Engineer

    I joined IBM as a graduate developer and worked my way up to Lead UX Engineer. That's where the two halves met: real engineering, and a real obsession with how people experience software.

  4. 04

    Product, and figuring out what people want

    Understanding users and what they need from software is the part I love most. It's why your site won't just look good. It'll be built around the thing your customers are actually trying to do.

What I believe

A few things I won't budge on.

You own your presence

Your domain, your hosting, your code, all in your name. Why should anyone else hold the rights to how your business shows up online? When we're done, you can walk away with the lot.

No invented work

If you need your images compressed, I'll compress your images. I won't sell you a full redesign you don't need to pad an invoice. The fix should match the problem, nothing more.

Plain English, always

No jargon used to glaze over a technical answer. If I can't explain what I'm doing in a way that makes sense to you, that's on me, not you.

Fixed prices, up front

Real numbers on the website before you ask. You should never have to fill in a form to find out what something costs, or brace yourself for a surprise at the end.

Fast is not optional

A slow site quietly costs you customers every day. I've taken a build from 8.4 seconds to 0.8. Speed is the floor, not a premium add-on.

Built to do a job

Compliments are nice. Enquiries pay the bills. Every page is there to help a real person do the thing they came to do, then get in touch.

Off the clock

When I'm not building.

I grew up in London and moved to Woking a couple of years ago. Most of my free time involves being near water. I love swimming, surfing, or just being on the coast. Portugal is my favourite place. We go back to Alvor every summer and it never gets old.

When I'm not in the sea I'm out on a walk, ideally with a dog involved. The long-term plan is a place in the proper countryside, a couple of ducks, and a garden growing its own vegetables. For now I'm very happy building things on a laptop and helping Surrey businesses stop dreading their website.

  • Dogs, always
  • In the water
  • Alvor every summer
  • Ducks, one day

// let's talk

Fancy working with a human who explains things?

Fifteen minutes, no pressure, no jargon. We'll talk through what you need and I'll give you an honest answer on whether I can help.

Tell me about your project

Or book a free call.

hello@madebyfederica.co.uk · I respond within 24 hours