DESIGN and marketing agency Cornerstone has appointed two full stack website developers to its team.

Pete Collum and Mo Ali are among six new recruits appointed at the Oldham agency in the past 12 months, which now has a team of 19.

They are working on a varied range of website development projects for public and private sector clients across sectors including leisure and gyms, local authorities, manufacturing and retail.

Pete Collum, 27, grew up in Greenfield and attended Saddleworth School then Oldham Sixth Form College, studying A-level economics, maths and computing.

He then studied a four-year international business degree at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) which included one year overseas at the University of Economics in Prague, an experience he really enjoyed.

After graduating, he worked in Manchester for the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Bank of New York Mellon, asset management specialist Arrow Global and the Systra engineering consultancy.

However, he wanted to move his career from business to IT. He then completed a BCS level 4 apprenticeship in software development with Health Education England in Manchester.

He said: “It was really interesting to learn how IT teams work, dealing with data, clients and lots of variables. I met some very skilled developers there. I also went on a three-month bootcamp with Code Nation, learning different software languages and creating different projects.

“I knew about Cornerstone Design & Marketing for a number of reasons. As a MMU graduate, I have access to the university’s online career hub, where I saw the Cornerstone developer vacancies advertised. I applied, had a couple of interviews online and completed a mini website project before physically visiting the Cornerstone office, which is really nice.

“Because of the Covid-19 restrictions, the number of people working in the office has been limited and we’ve also worked from home. But we’ve been made very welcome and had good support. It’s also nice to be working with the other new web developer, Mo, and bouncing ideas off each-other.”

One of Pete’s key interests is API work. Application Programming Interfaces enable communications between different websites and sources, pulling data from one to another. Cornerstone has a strong reputation for managing these kinds of projects for clients across sectors such as leisure, property, manufacturing and retail.

The second new developer is Mo Ali, aged 29, from Werneth, Oldham. He has previously worked for two agencies in Oldham and Manchester. Mo attended Radclyffe School and Oldham Sixth Form College, studying A-level business and applied ICT, then the University of Salford where he graduated in multi-media and internet technology.

He said: “Joining Cornerstone gives me the opportunity to develop my skills and experience including working on custom-built websites. There is a good variety of work here which I enjoy. I’m using a range of HTML, CSS, WordPress, PHP and JavaScript languages and software. As I develop, I’ll be moving on to the Laravel framework and developing larger scale websites.”

Mo first contacted Cornerstone back in 2018 when he applied for a previous vacancy and spoke to David Wadsworth, the managing director. Unfortunately, the position had already been filled. So, when he saw the new web development vacancies in 2020, he was keen to contact Cornerstone again.

He said: “I’ve been made very welcome at Cornerstone and had good support in settling-in. The national lockdowns and other restrictions have meant we’ve had to work in the office and at home at different times, but everyone has been really supportive. We’ve still been able to meet all the different departments, either in the office or remotely, and got insight into the different services at Cornerstone, from creative and digital to PR and the print room.”

Cornerstone Design and Marketing was founded in 2007 by managing director David Wadsworth. The agency moved to bigger, bespoke premises in late 2019 with an expanded wide-format print room, bigger offices, meeting rooms, design studios and a photography/video studio.