The person behind the work

Hi, I'm Federica.

I'm a product manager, previously Lead UX Engineer at IBM. Anyone can get a website built now. Getting the £40,000 customer to call is a different job, and that's the one I do: what the site says, how you get found in Surrey, and what comes in each month. Then I hand you the keys.

Book a Strategy SessionSee the work
Federica on a boat in Faro, Portugal
Based in
Woking, Surrey
Career
Product manager
Previously
Lead UX Engineer, IBM
Builds in
Next.js, by hand
Recent build
Voss Labs, software studio

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

Product thinking, with the skills to build it.

My career is in product management. I work backwards from the result a business needs, learn what customers are trying to do and make hard decisions about what belongs. I also know how to design and build the thing. That combination is the point.

  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 isn't 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

Your next step

Book a Strategy Session.

Ninety minutes on a call, then a written plan within three working days. £250, credited in full against any build. A name and a number is enough; I'll reply with three slots.

Not sure it's for you? Send it anyway. If the honest answer is that you don't need me, I'll say so.