Updates Archives - WebLocomotive

My Professional Journey

by Renee Koren | Jan 14, 2025 | Updates

The things that I’ve done

Intro

2010 – Beginnings in Freelancing In 2010, after returning to the U.S. from living abroad, I created a web portfolio and posted my resume online. I took on a few small projects, working exclusively with static HTML and CSS.

2011 – Internship, First Agency Experience, and Continued Freelancing My journey with agencies began in 2011 when a local agency, Wild Web Studios, brought me on as an “intern.” I poured everything I had into the projects I worked on and felt incredibly proud of my contributions. The team would take my hand-coded pages and integrate them into their custom CMS, giving me valuable experience and insight into agency workflows.

I took on a few side projects like these.

After working at WWS for a while and taking on a few personal projects, I realized I needed something more stable. That’s when I joined FDI Creative, initially part-time before transitioning to a full-time role. At the time, they primarily worked with Joomla, so I focused on building custom templates, providing customer support, and assisting with hosting support, among other responsibilities. Over the course of my time there, I advanced from junior developer to lead developer. I also had my first experience mentoring junior developers as the team grew.

2013 – Printshop Web Department Eager to advance my career, I joined a print company that was looking to establish its own web department. With opportunities for growth and a lot of flexibility, I started working for CME Printing. I spent about a year and a half there, gaining valuable experience working with Magento, integrations, and marketing.

2014 – Purposefully Purposeful at a Larger Agency Joining the larger design and marketing agency Savage marked an exciting milestone in my career. I was thrilled when I received the offer. At Savage, most of our web work was done in WordPress, creating custom themes from their thoughtfully designed layouts. My time there allowed me to expand my skills in planning, research, and marketing strategy, while also diving deep into WordPress custom development, reusable blocks, and theme creation. One of my personal accomplishments was building the “Perculator”—a base template that featured a solid grid and all the usual elements and options we often used. As lead developer, I refined it and applied it to several projects, improving our response time and the overall quality of our final products.

2016 – Tech Company and the Best Manager Ever After my time at Savage, I applied for a position at BMC Technologies, the largest company I’d worked for up to that point. After a thorough interview process, I was brought on as a temp-to-hire employee. I was proud when the team decided to onboard me about a month earlier than expected. My manager had a challenging situation with team members spread out globally (a rarity before the COVID era), but he handled it exceptionally well with regular check-ins, effective delegation, and solid planning. I enjoyed working with the team more than any other job I’d had at that time, despite only meeting a few of them in person. My first project was to reassess and revamp their tag management system, a task that was initially intimidating since I had never worked with the Adobe Marketing Suite. Fortunately, Adobe offers a wealth of resources online, so I quickly familiarized myself with the system, learned how their existing setup was structured, and then redesigned and restructured it. I identified and fixed bugs, improved load times, and collaborated with the analytics and A/B testing teams to resolve issues and enhance the system. Additionally, I worked with various BMC teams on marketing-related projects, including building a marketing tag generator, creating how-to guides, integrating third-party solutions, implementing Adobe analytics tracking during a full website rebuild, developing WordPress sites for events, and building front-end modules in Adobe for the new site. It was a role that offered a great deal of variety, with a strong focus on Adobe and integrations. One accomplishment I’m particularly proud of is that I successfully implemented and maintained a zero-cookie load for BMC’s public-facing websites during my time there.

2018 – Consulting for companies including BMC and CME Printing In 2019, I transitioned to part-time due to family commitments and had to step back from my role at BMC. However, I’ve maintained a strong relationship with them and have completed two standalone projects since, each lasting a few months. During this time, I’ve also worked on various projects with past employers like CME Printing, as well as other local businesses. Freelancing has provided me with the flexibility to explore new opportunities, including adding React.js to my skill set and diving deep into online training courses to further hone my expertise in my field.

2025 – Looking Ahead, Ready for New Challenges

As 2025 begins, with my family situation in a positive place (kids starting school), I’m excited to embrace new professional opportunities. I’m ready to return to a full-time role and contribute to a regular team again, after a period of flexibility and freelancing. The stability of this new chapter has me looking forward to diving into fresh challenges and collaborating on long-term projects.

In addition to my career aspirations, I’m currently enrolled in college courses that are broadening my skill set and providing new perspectives. These courses are likely to play a significant role in shaping the direction of my future work and professional growth. I’m excited about the possibilities ahead and eager to see how these new experiences will influence my next steps.

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The peculiarities of this place...

Stepping outside the norms.

Looking for a team

How I can help your team.

My journey

The places and people I’ve worked for, and some of the interesting things about them.

The peculiarities of this place

by Renee Koren | Jan 13, 2025 | Updates

Slightly strange, but practical

Slightly Strange, but Practical The first version of this website was built back in 2011, inspired by a design from Alex. It was intricate, creative, and a lot of fun to work on. But it was also overly complicated—we never actually finished it. Life got busy. I was working full-time, and Alex shifted focus to sharing his work on platforms like Behance and Dribbble. Our combined portfolio fell to the bottom of our priority list. Fast forward to 2023, and I felt it was time for a revamp. With plans to ramp up my workload, I wanted something fresh. Sure, I could’ve tweaked a pre-made theme—it would’ve been functional—but I wanted something different. I wanted to strip away the “standard” features I’d usually assume belonged on a website: the top-left logo, top-right navigation, hero-position call-to-action buttons. Instead, I focused on what truly mattered—what visitors to this site would actually be looking for. I realized that traditional branding (logos, headers, etc.) wasn’t crucial here. The real “brand” is us: Alex and me. So, I broke the rules. I ditched the header entirely and moved minimal branding to the footer, where visitors would naturally end up when sending a message. Depending on the link you click, you’ll either land on Alex’s portfolio or mine—no distractions, just the essentials. It felt a little rebellious to remove the header, but it works. We opted for a single-page design. Alex’s section showcases his best work in a custom masonry grid, while I took a blog-style approach since my work is less visual. The grid items in Alex’s portfolio link to detailed project pages with light branding and hidden navigation—revealed only briefly on page load. Visitors can navigate related projects through a subtle carousel, letting Alex guide their exploration. Project layouts are clean and straightforward, with space for product mockups at the top (like hats or t-shirts featuring his designs) and supporting images and text below. My blog, on the other hand, has a playful touch, with hover effects revealing extra details and mock code snippets for decoration. We intentionally differentiated our sections visually: Alex’s portfolio is set on a white background, while my coding area features a black one. This contrast highlights the harmony between design and development, emphasizing how both come together to create functional and beautiful outcomes. For this project, I built several custom modules for the Divi Builder (my go-to WordPress template) and shared them publicly on GitHub. It’s rewarding to create tools others can use while adding fresh work to my portfolio. Finally, as I wrote this post, I struggled to find the right way to illustrate it. I wanted an AI-generated image—something unique, practical, and elegantly simple. After chatting with folks at my son’s sporting event, someone mentioned a screwdriver, which sparked the idea of… the Allen key. It’s a perfect metaphor for this project: a small, unassuming tool that’s incredibly useful when you need it.