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Ashley Firth

Developer / Author / Leader / Speaker

Around my work, I consult with companies in order to help them improve their approach to accessibility, and with people to help them with management and leadership. If that sounds interesting to you, let's chat.

Work

Octopus Energy (December 2015 - Present)

Global Director of Engineering

I built and lead the Global Engineering team at Octopus Energy, overseeing its growth and development, crafting sites and internal tools, building new products and campaigns, and expanding into other countries. Our aim is to combat climate change, use technology to build a better standard of energy supplier, and make renewable energy more affordable for everyone.

The team started as just me, and now comprises amazing Front-end, Back-end, Mobile, Design, Product, and Data Viz teams in order to collaborate, build a workplace we're proud of, and do great things!

In May 2020, Octopus Energy became the 15th UK tech “unicorn” after achieving a valuation of over £1 billion. A huge passion of mine at Octopus is web accessibility; ensuring we have a usable, enjoyable experience for everyone regardless of their disability or access needs. If you're interested, I've written a book about it, which you can learn more about here.

Stack: React, GraphQL, Apollo, Jest, React Testing Library, NextJS, Styled Components, Storybook

Awards:

  • 🏆 Which? recommended energy supplier 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, & 2018
  • 🏆 uSwitch Supplier of the Year 2021, 2020 & 2018
  • 🏆 Amazon Scale-Up Awards 2020 - Disruptor & Innovator Award
  • 🏆 Employee Experience awards 2021 & 2019 - Best company to work for, Diversity & Inclusion award
  • 🏆 Energy Awards supplier of the year 2021, 2019 & 2017
  • 🏆 UK Customer Experience Awards 2020, 2019 & 2018 - Best Utility
  • 🏆 UK Customer Experience Awards 2020 & 2019 - Best Customer Experience

Writing

Practical Web Inclusion and Accessibility

My first book, published with Apress, is about web accessibility. This book will guide you through a broad range of access needs, the barriers users often face, and provide practical advice on how your sites can help rather than hinder. Going beyond advice tailored solely for developers, this book offers potential improvements for designers, developers, user experience professionals, QA and testers, so that everyone involved in building a website can benefit.

Accessibility: a web for all

Web Designer Magazine (Issue 272)

A feature for a print magazine talking about designing and developing for general web accessibility, and helping those with specific disabilities.

Personal blog

A more personal space for my writing. Typically includes thoughts on management, accessibility, productivity, and how me, my team, and Octopus Energy handle things.

Speaking

Gartner IT Symposium (Barcelona)

A fireside chat about the future of AI within the workplace, alongside Asana. I spoke about my history at Octopus Energy, our values, and our approach to using AI.

Credit Summit

I spoke at Credit Strategy's 'Credit Summit' as part of a Q&A panel about Digitalising the customer journey and how best to empower vulnerable customers.

Utility Week Live

I spoke and was part of a Q&A panel as part of the ‘Creating inclusive services’ seminar session at Utility Week Live. My talk focused on easy ways for companies to improve the accessibility of their websites with minimal effort, and why that's so important.

Festival of Marketing

My talk was about accessibility on the web and beyond, the challenges we’ve faced at Octopus Energy trying to make a truly inclusive experience for everyone, and why it’s so important that everybody focuses on this in today’s society.

Current focus

Want to know what I'm reading / playing / building / thinking? Check out my Now page

Consulting

Around my work, I consult with companies in order to help them improve their approach to accessibility, and with people to help them with management and leadership. If that sounds interesting to you, let's chat.

Recruiting

My team and I have spent a long time creating brand and region agnostic code, so that we can build and maintain multiple instances of branded energy websites using the same core components.

Octopus have expanded into 15 countries across 5 continents, and I'm looking for passionate Front-end developers to join my team at Octopus Energy. If you're interested, then drop me an email with your CV to ashley[at]octopus[dot]energy

Past work

Tangent Snowball (November 2013 - December 2015)

I worked on digital marketing and CRM projects focusing on creating strong, adaptive sites that can handle high traffic for their clients. I was promoted to Head of Front-end development after just under two years, and became responsible for recruiting, mentoring, and organising and delegating work. Through this role I also had the opportunity to be a judge in the 2015 DMA awards for ‘best use of technology’.

Clients: SAP, The Labour Party, Walkers, Carlsberg.

Fishrod Interactive (June 2012 - November 2013)

I worked at Fishrod Interactive after graduating, on projects abroad and all over the U.K. I helped to create interactive experiences and installations. My main roles were creating responsive web and mobile apps to handle the content created from these installations, and liaising with clients throughout projects.

Clients: WWE, Sky, Budweiser, Metro

Education

BA (Hons) First class honours, Interactive Media Production

I attended Bournemouth University, graduating in 2012. I was also a peer-assisted learning coordinator, student ambassador, and student radio presenter - receiving the student development award.