CASTLEGATE IT LIMITED - Key Persons
Andy is a talented web professional with over 15 years professional experience. As Castlegate's Technical Director, Andy is responsible for creating and maintaining the company's development practices and procedures. This combined with his keen eye for detail ensures that every project meets our highest standards.
Andy started building websites as a hobby in 2000 during the early years of the web before starting his career in 2004. He joined Castlegate in 2008 as a designer and developer, building websites and web applications. He has had one of the most varied roles within the company, working within development, project management, SEO, UX, accessibility and system administration.
Job Titles:
- Company Administrator and Support Desk Coordinator
Dawn is our company administrator, and she brings a frankly staggering breadth of experience to Castlegate IT. She started working at 16 straight from school at the old York Carriage works, when carbon paper was still in use and computers were still in their infancy. She subsequently worked in admin for British Rail, first in the Outdoor and Machinery Depot and then moved into payroll, transferring to different organisations as British Rail was broken up during privatisation, and subsequently to Costcutter and the Post Office.
She has extensive customer experience, not least from volunteering as a member of the Intercity Customer Action Team team, who went out to trains that were late armed with a timetable to help passengers re-plan their journeys.
Having left the rail industry she gained her NEBOSH Health and Safety Certificate qualification and spent 3 years as an office supervisor doing the administration, purchasing and sales for a small local business producing granite, marble and quartz work surfaces.
By now fearless, she started in the Admin role here in 2017 and is now enjoying the opportunity to massively develop her software skills and help us with our business processes.
Jim's first computer was a pocket sized Sinclair ZX81.
He then spent ten years computer free, until joining the Hore Group at the Physical Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford University, to simulate photosynthetic reactions on a room-sized Norsk Data mainframe.
After working in the computer communications group at Oxford City Council he studied Information Systems and the Human Computer Interface, undertaking a study of robot vision systems with the University of York's Advanced Computer Architecture Group.
Jim Semlyen founded Semlyen IT Consultants in 2005, offering web development services to local businesses around York. Based in an office on Castlegate in the city centre, his friendly, personal approach and technical attention to detail meant the company quickly grew in size and reputation. In 2011, it became Castlegate IT Ltd and Jim was joined by Richard Lane and Andy Reading as company directors.
John is a senior developer, specialising in front-end code and WordPress development. He spends his time at Castlegate IT writing high quality HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and developing bespoke WordPress themes and plugins, many of which can be found on our GitHub account. John loves learning new things and has turned his hand to everything from web design to server administration since joining the company in 2011.
New technologies and web standards mean our industry is always changing and John likes to keep up with a whole range of issues, from responsive web design to accessibility concerns to tools for building and deploying websites. Always seeking maximum workplace efficiency, he is also responsible for writing the office tea-making software.
Before following his passion for code, John has been an ecologist in the public sector, a biology student at the University of York, and a junior sheep farmer in Wales. He has never regretted his move to working indoors.
Job Titles:
- Developer
- PHP & WordPress Developer
Job Titles:
- Director
- Project Manager
- Senior Project Manager
Louisa Machado has been the Senior Project Manager at Castlegate IT for the past five years. Louisa plays a key role in projects from inception to completion. As your main point of contact throughout, Louisa is responsible for ensuring clear and effective communication, a high quality of service and timely delivery.
As project manager Louisa's remit includes identifying project milestones, scheduling work and ensuring that key information and detail is clearly and appropriately communicated. Following our clear project process, working closely with our creative and technical teams, Louisa brings our understanding and experience of engagement context and audience, existing market interrogation and audience research together with additional insight gathered during the specification phase to supervise collaboration and deliver client aims and objectives, maximising return on investment whilst mindful of budget.
Louisa oversees regular meetings, involving key stakeholders and relevant members of our design and development team to monitor progress throughout the specification, design and development process and to discuss issues or questions as they arise, taking this forward to maintain an agile approach throughout the project.
Oliver is the in-house Google Ads specialist at Castlegate. He works closely with our clients to understand their business goals, and sets up Google advertising campaigns to get their products and services in front of their target audiences.
Having also worked as a copywriter, he's proficient at writing compelling and effective adverts. But, with a background in science and mathematics, Oliver aims to use evidence-based practices wherever possible. Using Google Ads makes it possible for Oliver to adopt a data-driven approach to advertising, enabling him to improve the effectiveness of the ads over time by analysing performance data and tweaking ad targeting settings in response.
Robin has had an interest in computers all their life, and has been on the internet since the first time they needed a guide for a video game. Having lived online since the mid 2000s, they understand the need for a well designed website.
After completing a BA in English at the University of York, Robin got into web testing and started learning web development, combining their interest in technology with a desire to work creatively. They joined Castlegate as an apprentice in 2021, and are enthusiastic about developing their knowledge of all aspects of web development.
Robin enjoys spending their free time reading, playing video games, and learning new skills. They are currently teaching themself to draw.
Sam has always enjoy using and learning about computers and technology even from an early age. This continued throughout college and university where he completed a BTEC in Software Development and then went on to achieve a BSc in Games Design.
After taking a brief hiatus from the IT industry Sam joined Castlegate IT in 2016 as a Support Desk Coordinator and Junior Developer.
In his spare time when he's not tinkering with computer or playing video games he can be found at the gym or exploring new cities.
Sunny is an experienced creative with a degree in Design and Art Direction and over 10 years professional experience in digital design. He understands that great design requires great research, so he learns about a project's requirements, target audience, their motivations, their goals, and aspirations in order to produce stunning visual communications that delivers the best results for our clients.
Sunny is talented and experienced in producing digital design, branding, and print artwork. Throughout his career Sunny has worked with a wide range of clients, from small owner operated businesses to global pharmaceutical giants. Although budgets vary, he knows that the objective is always the same - producing something that delights the target audience and delivers for the client. He loves leading the creative process and watching an idea develop through multiple iterations into a finished piece of communication being consumed by the end user.
The majority of Sunny's work at Castlegate has focused on digital design. He enjoys working with our clients on information architecture and the user journey, working out how best to organise the content of a website and the most efficient and user-friendly way to deliver the content for maximum engagement.
Weronika became interested in web technologies while studying cognitive science in Poland. After moving to England she spent 18 months learning web development in her spare time which lead to her joining the Castlegate team as an apprentice.
Having a non-programming customer service background, Weronika enjoys working with clients and always aims to bring together the technical and non-technical perspective in a project.
Weronika loves learning new things and is fascinated with front end technologies. In her spare time she can be found at the gym, listening to podcasts and reading.