About a week ago, Phil Hawksworth's feet (Technical Director, R/GA London) were walking on Romanian soil towards Marriott Hotel, where he was going to be a speaker for JSCamp Romania, conference organised for front-end developers and engineers, web designers and web entrepreneurs. Phil holds a degree in Computer Science and Business and has more than 10 years experience in building things for the web. It's been three years since he works for R/GA London. As I've never had the opportunity to talk to a Technical Director, especially one that has worked for brands such as Beats by Dre or Nike+, I've asked Phil some questions about the workflow at R/GA London, about how you can make sure that the digital part is in line with the other components of a campaign, about trends in web development.
IQads: Hello Phil! So, you’re a Technical Director at R/GA. What exactly is that and how does one get such a job? Do you often have to repair technical stuff?
Phil Hawksworth: Being a Technical Director is quite different to working in Information Systems or technical support. It basically means that I’m involved in leading a team of developers on projects. I used to be a developer and still think of myself as someone who writes code, but at work I tend to lean on the skills of an amazing team of developers. I spend more time planning the technical architecture for a project and working with clients to ensure that we can build something for them which satisfies their needs while being achievable in the budget and time. It’s a job which involves a lot of creativity and invention but also coordinating teams of people.
