Meet December's uProfile: Richard Ockerby

H5YR, Richard!

It doesn't matter how new you're to Umbraco or the community - the only thing that matters is your willingness to learn and contribute. This month's uProfile is the perfect example of that, and even though he's "still pretty fresh into his Umbraco career", as he says it, it didn't stop him from applying for The Package Team. A big welcome to Richard Ockerby, December's uProfile:

Company name: Drummond Central

Job Role: Technical Director

Country: United Kingdom

For how long have you been working with Umbraco?: Around 2 years

Favourite Umbraco moment?

I think my favourite moment with Umbraco by far is getting to grips with the Lucene search engine.

It's just so quick (the default time measurement is microseconds…) and flexible, I have no idea how we managed searches before!

Plus, I love all that nerdy stuff; the more complicated, the better.

What in your Umbraco career are you most proud of?

I'm still pretty fresh into my Umbraco career, but I'd say the proudest moment came when I got picked to be part of the Package Team.

Having the opportunity to work with the team and give back to the community that's made Umbraco what it is today is quite a proud and humbling experience.

What about Umbraco keeps you coming back for more?

The extensibility of Umbraco is a big selling point for me.

We used to work with a custom-built CMS we made in house, a story that rings true with a lot of developers, and just couldn't find anything that matched how flexible it was.

Other than that, the clients just love how easy it is to use!

What are you currently working on?

A lot is going on at the minute, but the biggest piece of work is an online virtual experience for a local client.

We've got the front end created in Vue, using Umbraco as a headless CMS. There's a lot going on with this beast of a project, but one of the more exciting parts is the use of variants to tailor content for segmented users.

What are your top 3 best tips for an Umbraco newbie?

Give yourself time and experiment. It's the best way to learn, especially until you get used to the way Umbraco works under the hood.
Reach out to the community. If you're stuck on something or you just have a general question, then the forum on Our is a great place to put it out there and get some answers.
Check out the packages. There's a lot of functionality that people have already created readily available in packages which can save you a load of time.

Any aspirations for your future?

I would say that my main goal is to be more involved in the Umbraco project and community. I have already made a big step with this by getting involved with the Package team, so full steam ahead!

What is on your desk at work?

All the essentials; keyboard and mouse (obviously), wireless headphones to keep me motivated, Xbox controller for lunchtime games and pictures of my family (just to keep me grounded and remind me what it's all about!)

What video game are you playing now?

Recently, nostalgia has been kicking in, and I've been playing back through all of the Halo games with a friend.

Plus I have a slight obsession with my Xbox gamerscore so with 7000g up for grabs I just had to.

Do you have a hidden talent?

Cooking chips.

Since I was a little nipper, I've been interested in building/fixing computers and recently I was given a Mac which had some problems with the graphics.

Cooking instructions; pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees and bake for 10 minutes until the solder reflows nicely.

Leave to cool, repaste and pop back in the Mac.

Boot up and enjoy.