Tom Chute joined Pragmatic in March 2014 as a WordPress designer and developer. He has since progressed to Team Leader, leading our development and design departments as well as feeding into our internal marketing team. Tom’s a WordPress expert with a background in communications, campaigning and marine biology. He’s worked with WordPress’s CMS for a wide range projects since 2010.
Read our Q&A interview with WordPress expert Tom Chute below:
How long have you been working with WordPress? What are your first memories of it?
Nearly 7 years. I remember being blown away by the flexibility of the CMS compared with other systems I was using. I also remember a sense of opening a door to a buzzing, thriving community – it was like walking into a public library as a kid and asking “I can use these books for Free?!”
What do you enjoy most about working at Pragmatic?
Great team mates. There is a brilliant combination of people here, who all bring something different to the office and our work. Everyone has the opportunity to input on the runnings of the business, it is very democratic. If something isn’t working, we are very agile in trying solutions, where anyone can have a say.
What experiences do you have that are relevant to your role?
I have worked on and led a wide range of projects and campaigns, from the initial inception, through attracting funding to delivery and reporting. I have been using WordPress to address all kinds of business objectives as a designer and developer for 6 years. I have also worked client-side for a range of organisations, so understand the other side of the coin. I am not a hardcore coder, and have quite a varied background (studied Marine Biology at university), so can help clients understand the technical side of projects.
What’s your greatest achievement since you started at Pragmatic?
As a Team Leader, my successes are only possible if the team is happy and working well. So my biggest achievement is creating a team that new members of staff feel happy to be a part of, and delivering loads of brilliant sites. Recently, launching a site for I am Team GB, with hundreds of thousands of sign-ups, was a massive buzz for me and the team.
What do you like most about being a Team Leader?
I love getting the team together and cracking through an issue on a site collaboratively. I also LOVE sharing in the successes and feedback with the team, as a lot of hard work goes into these websites!
What’s your must-have function in a WordPress website?
A solid and well-functioning mobile version. So many sites look beautiful on desktop, but become ugly or, even worse, unusable on mobile.
If you were an animal, what animal would you be (and why)?
An Otter – they are very social and do well in nature because of they stick together, look out for each other and are pretty clever with their use of tools.