Web developer · Midlands, UK

Hello, I’m Malcolm Fellowes.

I’m a web developer.

I build websites, online shops and web apps in PHP, JavaScript and React, plus the tools behind them, and I keep the servers they live on running. I’m usually the lead developer, and a lot of my work is white label, so you won’t always see my name on it. Fifteen-odd years in, I’m still working for most of the same people.

Get in touchDig deeper

Malcolm Fellowes, smiling, in a dark three-piece suit and tie
Me (actual)

Topsoil What I do

I build the bit you see, and the bit underneath.

I’m a web developer, and I work through my company, MF Web Limited. Most of what I do is e-commerce and business websites: Shopify stores, custom PHP and Symfony platforms, and WordPress sites.

I write a lot of JavaScript too, including React, for the parts that need to feel more like an app than a page, and plenty of SQL to keep track of everything.

The part I enjoy most is underneath: the tools and systems that save people time, fix the thing that’s been annoying them for years, or quietly do a job nobody else wants to.

More and more of that involves AI: building it into sites and tools where it genuinely saves time or does something useful, rather than bolting on a chatbot because everyone else has one.

I’m usually the lead developer, which sometimes means managing a team. A lot of the work is white label: agencies and companies bring me in, and their clients see their name on it, not mine.

I also run my own servers for web and application hosting, and I help manage the infrastructure for other companies.

  • PHP
  • Symfony
  • JavaScript
  • React
  • AI
  • Shopify & Liquid
  • WordPress
  • SQL
  • Linux servers
  • Leading dev teams
Malcolm Fellowes, smiling, in a dark three-piece suit and tie
The real me. The little fella with the shovel is artistic licence.

Clay Ten years and counting

Moon Magic.

Who they are. Moon Magic sells gemstone jewellery, from moonstone and opal to raw crystal and lab-grown diamonds, to customers all over the world.

What I do. I’ve been their lead developer since day one: I built the theme they launched with in 2016, and these days I lead their small team of developers. It’s a lot more than the shop front. I built the system that works out the shipping times you see on the site, and the one that produces their astrology reports, plus a whole toolbox of things that help the team get through the day.

The short version: they have problems, and I help solve them.

Moon Magic homepage: moonstone and opal rings with the heading “10 years of Moon Magic”
The design is theirs. A lot of what runs underneath it was coded by me or I had my hands on it.

Ironstone Two more Shopify stores

Skull Bliss & Noro Arts.

Who they are. Skull Bliss sells hand-carved animal skulls, from cow and ram to XL longhorns, to collectors all over the world. Noro Arts sells handcrafted teak sculpture, wall art and totem poles, made by artisans in Bali and Vietnam.

What I do. I’m the lead developer for both, looking after their Shopify stores and everything that keeps them running behind the scenes.

Noro Arts homepage: carved teak birds flying across a wall above a sideboard
Skull Bliss homepage: a carved longhorn skull on a red wall, celebrating ten years
A lot of the plumbing you can trace back to me.

Sandstone Ten years deep

Offtek.

Who they are. Offtek have been selling computer memory since 1996, when I was five. These days they supply memory upgrades, SSDs and genuine OEM parts for laptops, desktops and servers, shipping worldwide to everyone from home users to IT professionals.

What I do. I’ve been their lead developer since 2016. I rebuilt their old legacy website in Symfony, and I built their order system, which replaced one that used to run on Microsoft Access. (It’s in the fossil layer now. We don’t talk about it.)

These days I keep delivering new features and functionality, and I sort out problems as they come up.

Offtek homepage: a search panel for finding compatible RAM and SSD upgrades
The look is theirs. The platform underneath it is mine.

Shale Lots of thin layers, since 2016

Redpost Media.

Who they are. Redpost Media are a digital marketing agency in Totnes, Devon, who’ve spent over 20 years helping small and medium-sized businesses grow.

What I do. I’ve worked with Redpost since 2016. Between us we look after a network of over 100 WordPress websites, mostly for small businesses. Because Redpost are a marketing company, the clients come from every sector going: farm shops, tile companies, QR memory sites and plenty more.

The work covers everything from frontend design to backend functionality, with the odd site scraper along the way. We even built one of the International Agatha Christie Festival websites some years ago. I built Redpost’s own website, too.

It’s white label, so their clients see Redpost rather than me. I’m quite happy underground.

Redpost Media homepage: the Redpost logo above a desk with printed brochures and a tablet
Each little square is one site, roughly. Below: Redpost’s own site, which I built.

Obsidian Classified

Sworn to secrecy.

Redpost aren’t the only marketing company I work behind. I’ve done a lot of white-label work for other agencies too, stepping in as their developer and talking to their clients as if I’m one of their own team.

One agency’s client turned out to be a marketing company as well, so I talked to them as the agency’s developer, and then to their client as if I were theirs. Layers within layers. I felt right at home.

That’s all I can tell you. I’m sworn to secrecy, so there are no names on this one, and there never will be. If you’re an agency that needs a developer who can keep quiet, get in touch. I won’t tell anyone.

Chalk Fresh finds

My own clients.

When I’m not working behind someone else’s name, I take on clients of my own. Lately that’s been a fair chunk of Coventry’s fitness scene, which is ironic, as the heaviest thing I lift is a trombone. I built all of these.

Groundwater Off the clock

Where I go to unwind: behind a trombone.

I’ve played trombone since I was about seven and I still haven’t put it down. These days you’ll find me in three bands:

  • Jazz Jones Orchestra big band
  • Tamworth Wind Band concert band
  • RAF Cosford Voluntary Band military band

Three bands is either dedication or a scheduling problem. Probably both.

Fossil bed The early years

The fossil record.

Anyone who’s been building websites for a while has a layer like this. This one’s mine. I’m leaving it where it is.

  • spacer.gifOne pixel by one pixel. Held up half the early web.
  • <table width="100%">A way to lay out pages. Extinct c. 2010. Do not resuscitate.
  • Fireworks.pngWas on my skills list. Is now under several feet of rock.
  • <!--[if lt IE 9]>Found in the source of my own old website. Honestly.
  • orders.mdbOfftek’s old Microsoft Access order system. Retired with full honours.
  • Elance profileWhere my freelancing started. Elance itself has since gone extinct.

Gem seam The precious stuff

Kind words.

A few things clients have said about working with me over the years.

  • Again and again, he never ceases to show his proficiency for his work. This is the most brilliant man in web design that I have ever had the pleasure of working with. This was our 8th time hiring this developer and I have already agreed on the 9th job. His quality of work exceeds all expectations. His responses are quick, honest and respectful.

    The pricing has always been reasonable and his expertise amazes me. The work produced was so quick that I had to speed up. If you’re looking for a solid developer, programmer, designer with brilliant ideas and has the knowledge to implement them, then look no further. You have found your person.

    Mount Vernon Coin Company

  • Kampa’s choice of web designer. If you are after someone who can not only design your website but actually listens and implements your own ideas then Malcolm is the best person to get in contact with.

    Malcolm understands that the “mumbo jumbo” jargon that technology savvy people talk is not understood by mere mortals and clearly explained everything that he was doing at each step in a user friendly manner. The experience was great and the specification of the website is exactly what we were after.

    Max Lawless, Kampa UK Limited

  • Malcolm’s a real pleasant guy to work with. I have never hired a web developer before as close friends of mine have had really bad experiences but I am really happy to say that Malcolm made the whole experience very pleasant.

    He was not only positive, he was really passionate about my site and was coming up with ideas I’d never even thought of doing. If you have had a bad experience before pick this guy. He won’t disappoint you.

    Brian Dunlap, Boffer Wars

  • I’ve been looking for a good, reliable developer for a very long time now and can happily say I’ve found him. Extremely kind, trustworthy, reliable and very knowledgeable, especially with Shopify. Would definitely recommend.

    Walter, private client

Dig up 9 more

  • Working with Malcolm was truly a pleasure! Always quick to respond, and attentive to my needs, I truly give him my highest recommendation! As I am one that is quite the perfectionist when it comes to design, Malcolm took direction with a positive smile and worked extremely hard to develop the site of my design dreams! He is wonderfully gifted in webwork, and I without a doubt recommend him to those of you around the world in need of web expertise :)

    Lauren, Lauren Christine Henno

  • Just a note to express my thanks for the speed and professionalism in your assessment and analysis of our needs in respect of current website provision and needs. The solutions you have illustrated and implemented have been appropriate, improved the image and perception of our company as a brand, and we have received inquiries within a week of going live.

    As well as displaying excellent technical knowledge, combined with patience at dealing with those of us who are not computer literate, the costs have proved a value for money investment! I look forward to working with you on an ongoing basis into the future!

    Alan Drabble, ADSOM

  • So impressed with Malcolm, he is extremely professional and explained everything to me in a way I understood. His work was very high quality, the project was finished ahead of schedule and I will 100% be using his services again. I wouldn’t have any hesitation in recommending him. All in all a very happy customer.

    Lauren, Girl vs Fashion Ltd

  • A freelancer I use again and again!

    Harriet, Collective Industries

  • Extremely knowledgeable and responsive. Assisted me with every change requested and gave amazing feedback when he had something better to suggest. Would definitely rehire!

    V2 Solutions LLC

  • Malcolm is a great developer. Knowledgeable, communicative and happy to make revisions until you are satisfied. The project was completed on budget and in time. Thanks Malcolm!

    Private client

  • I appreciate a lot the high level of interest of Malcolm in my project. He is an enthusiast. Absolutely recommended.

    MTB Passione

  • Excellent to work with, highly professional and fast responses to communication.

    Adam Oliver, private client

  • Awesome job as per usual! So lucky to have found Malcolm! Thanks again!

    Alanna, The Distinguished Guest

Slate Load-bearing

Honesty, no matter what.

This was my policy when I started out, and everything else still sits on it. I’ll tell you the truth when a job’s going to take longer, when something will cost more than you’d like, or when an idea just isn’t a good one. You’ll hear it from me first, and in plain English.

It works both ways. If I slip into jargon, tell me. If you don’t like something I’ve done, tell me. You’ll always get my honest opinion, but it’s your project and you have the final say.

Bedrock The reason why

Ten-foot chopsticks.

Why should I care whether your project does well? I get paid either way. The best answer I’ve got is an old story.

Read the story (about a minute)

A man is given a tour of the afterlife. First stop: Hell. He finds a vast banquet hall, with tables piled high with the best food he’s ever seen. There’s more than anyone could ever eat.

But the people sitting at those tables are in a terrible state. They’re thin, pale and miserable, ill and starving. Surrounded by all that food, they’re wasting away.

“Look closer,” says his guide. Every one of them is holding a pair of chopsticks ten feet long. They can pick the food up easily enough. They just can’t get it anywhere near their own mouths.

Next stop: Heaven. It’s the same hall, the same banquet and the same ten-foot chopsticks. But here, everyone is healthy and well fed. The room is full of chatter and laughter, and the people around the tables are happy and fulfilled.

“I don’t understand,” says the man. “What’s the difference?”

“Look closer.”

In Heaven, each person feeds whoever’s sitting across the table, and that person feeds them back.

That’s how I like to work. You trust me with your project, I do everything I can to make it a success, you do well, and I get to keep doing work I enjoy for people I like. Some of my clients and I have been passing food across that table for ten years now.

The core It’s warm down here

That’s the bottom. Fancy a chat?

Got a project, a problem, or a shop that’s misbehaving? Tell me about it. You’ll get a reply from me, not a sales team.

Prefer email?

You’ll also find me on LinkedIn and GitHub.

Agencies looking for white-label help are very welcome too.

I’ll only use your details to reply to you. No mailing lists, and I won’t pass them on.

Get in touch

The Clay Collection · since 2016

Moon Magic

Moon Magic sells gemstone jewellery, from moonstone and opal to raw crystal and lab-grown diamonds, to customers all over the world. Lead developer since day one, leading a small team of developers.

Exhibit 1 of 10 · 2016

The original theme

Moon Magic launched in 2016 on a Shopify theme I built from scratch, working from their design references.

The design is theirs, but it’s a lot more than a shop front, and a lot of what runs underneath it was coded by me or I had my hands on it.

  • Shopify
  • Liquid

Little me: Ooh, shiny. Not my design, mind.

Exhibit 2 of 10

Shipping times

Every piece is handcrafted, which makes logistics tricky, and it matters that customers are kept in the loop. I built the backend behind the delivery windows on the site, so customers see a much more accurate idea of when their order will arrive.

It understands how an order might be split into separate packages at checkout (long before Shopify had that built in), and it pulls from their internal data to work out the delivery timeframe for each country.

It’s more than dates on a page, too. It pipes the delivery information into Klaviyo for the order confirmation emails, which needed a bespoke setup outside Shopify’s usual emails, and it triggers the fulfilment emails.

  • Shopify
  • Klaviyo

Little me: Much nicer than “soon”.

Exhibit 3 of 10 · 2023

Two stores into one

In 2023 I helped lead the technical side of merging their old international store, shop.moonmagic.com, with the main store, which until then had been US-only.

That meant working with Shopify, Global-e (their cross-border partner), Growave (wishlists) and the Moon Magic team to keep downtime to a minimum. All the customer data had to come across. I put together the migration plan and strategy, then carried it out.

  • Shopify
  • Global-e
  • Growave

Little me: Measure twice, migrate once.

Exhibit 4 of 10

Checkout apps

I’ve built a number of Shopify apps that add checkout functionality for complex offers and seasonal events, everything from discount functions to cart transformers.

  • Shopify Functions

Little me: Buy one, get… well, it’s complicated.

Exhibit 5 of 10

Astrology reports

I built the system behind their astrology reports, working with the astrology specialist on the team to turn their know-how into something that works.

This was long before AI could help, and I didn’t know the first thing about astrology. It was a massive learning experience. These days I’m fascinated by the maths behind it all.

Little me: Didn’t see that one coming. The stars did.

Exhibit 6 of 10

A/B testing

I was one of the people who pushed for the team to keep A/B testing, and I still look after the technical side, including analysing the results.

It started on Google Optimize, which Google has since retired. There have been self-hosted GrowthBook instances along the way, and these days it’s Intelligems.

  • Intelligems
  • GrowthBook
  • Google Optimize

Little me: It’s always version B. Except when it isn’t.

Exhibit 7 of 10

Tools for the team

Lots of internal tools that help the team get through the day.

The newest is a platform that takes the manual work out of populating the metafields and other data behind some of the theme’s more complex features, like product cross-linking. It has AI built in to help.

  • AI
  • Metafields

Little me: The robot does the boring bits now. More time for coffee.

Exhibit 8 of 10

Code reviews

I do code reviews and audits, and I’ve brought AI tools into GitHub to make the review process better.

  • GitHub
  • AI

Little me: A second pair of eyes. A third, if you count the robot.

Exhibit 9 of 10

A knowledge base

I set up a self-hosted knowledge base for the team, moving them off Tettra to save on cost, so the procedures and how-tos the staff rely on are easy to find and share.

  • Self-hosted

Little me: Shh. This is a library.

Exhibit 10 of 10

The developers

I lead a small team of developers, building new features and dealing with the technical requests the rest of the Moon Magic team raise.

  • Leading a dev team

Little me: Good bunch, this lot.

The Ironstone Collection

Skull Bliss & Noro Arts

Skull Bliss sells hand-carved animal skulls to collectors all over the world. Noro Arts sells handcrafted teak sculpture, wall art and totem poles, made by artisans in Bali and Vietnam. Lead developer for both.

Exhibit 1 of 6

Skull Bliss

Their Shopify store, for carved skulls from cow and ram to XL longhorns.

Little me: Hand-carved, every one. I just do the website.

Exhibit 2 of 6

Noro Arts

Their Shopify store, for teak sculpture, wall art and totem poles from Bali and Vietnam.

Little me: Some of those totem poles are taller than me. Not hard.

Exhibit 3 of 6

Promotions

I’ve put together Shopify Functions to power their promotions.

  • Shopify Functions

Little me: The offers are theirs. The plumbing’s mine.

Exhibit 4 of 6

Off Vimeo

Their videos used to live on Vimeo. To cut bandwidth costs, I recently moved them all across to Shopify’s own hosting, using an automated process rather than one upload at a time.

  • Shopify
  • Automation

Little me: Moved house. Didn’t even need a van.

Exhibit 5 of 6

A/B testing

I help run the technical side of A/B testing on both sites, and I put forward test ideas of my own, too.

  • A/B testing

Little me: Ideas welcome. Especially mine.

Exhibit 6 of 6

Behind the scenes

Everything else that keeps both stores running behind the scenes.

Little me: A lot of the plumbing you can trace back to me.

The Sandstone Collection · since 2016

Offtek

Offtek have been selling computer memory since 1996, when I was five. These days they supply memory upgrades, SSDs and genuine OEM parts, shipping worldwide. Lead developer since 2016.

Exhibit 1 of 4

The Symfony rebuild

I rebuilt their old legacy website in Symfony.

Little me: Out with the old. Carefully.

Exhibit 2 of 4

The order system

I built their order system, which replaced one that used to run on Microsoft Access.

Little me: orders.mdb. Retired with full honours.

Exhibit 3 of 4

New features

I keep delivering new features and functionality.

Little me: Ten years in and still finding things to build.

Exhibit 4 of 4

Fixes

And I sort out problems as they come up.

Little me: Something’s broken? I’ll put the coffee on.

The Shale Collection · since 2016

Redpost Media

Redpost Media are a digital marketing agency in Totnes, Devon, who’ve spent over 20 years helping small and medium-sized businesses grow. I’ve worked with them since 2016, white label.

Exhibit 1 of 7

100+ WordPress sites

Between us we look after a network of over 100 WordPress websites, mostly for small businesses.

Little me: Over 100 sites. Mind your step.

Exhibit 2 of 7

Every sector going

Farm shops, tile companies, QR memory sites and plenty more.

Little me: Farm shops one day, tiles the next.

Exhibit 3 of 7

Front to back

Everything from frontend design to backend functionality.

Little me: Top to bottom. Like a good dig.

Exhibit 4 of 7

Database work

I’ve done a lot of database work for Redpost, automating the job of populating sites with content from spreadsheets and other archaic data sources.

  • Databases
  • Automation

Little me: Copy and paste? Not on my watch.

Exhibit 5 of 7

Site scrapers

When there’s no API to use, we’ve built scrapers that help clients pull supplier information from their suppliers’ websites, with the suppliers’ permission.

Little me: Web crawlers. The polite kind: we ask first.

Exhibit 6 of 7

The Agatha Christie Festival

We even built one of the International Agatha Christie Festival websites some years ago.

Little me: A mystery? I’ll take the case.

Exhibit 7 of 7

Redpost’s own site

I built Redpost’s own website, too.

Little me: The cobbler’s children have shoes, for once.