Meet Fraser Smith: Bitesize Bio’s Website Development Project Manager
Fraser Smith handles development and project management at Bitesize Bio, overseeing the technical side of our websites and services while shaping the company’s visual identity. But ask him about his background, and you’ll find he didn’t start out writing code at all.
From art school to Adobe Flash
Thirty years ago, Fraser was studying graphics and illustration at art school, planning to become a graphic designer. Life took him through Lloyds Bank and into learning design, where he created e-learning courses for employees. That’s when everything changed.
“I got access to Adobe Flash, and that was just like learning to run,” Fraser says. “I was able to make animations, do little coding blocks. As soon as I learned how to do that, I just ran with it.”
His projects grew more complex. The coding element expanded. Eventually, he landed at Sky and moved into their development department, where he had a pure developer role—Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, just coding and nothing else.
“Working with a smaller company like Bitesize Bio is great because you do need to get involved in a lot of things,” he explains. “It keeps it interesting and more creative. You get pulled into something that’s entirely outside the normal remit, and it sparks different ways of looking at things.”
What working at Bitesize Bio has taught him
The best advice Fraser’s ever received is “Don’t mistake a clear view for a short distance” and he admits he still needs to take it more often.
“A new project will come along and I’ll be like, okay, I can see what I need to do. We’ll get that done in a fortnight,” he says. “Then six weeks later when I’m putting the finishing touches to it, it’s kind of, yeah, okay. Just because I knew exactly what needed done, you sort of neglect to remember how long each bit takes.”
Since joining Bitesize Bio, Fraser’s stepped into management for the first time. He’s learning to lead a department and work with people in new ways. He’s also picked up an unusual amount of medical terminology.
“I work with a team full of doctors and big science webinars,” he laughs. “I probably know more medical terminology than a layman really should.”
If he won the lottery, he knows exactly what he’d do
Retire. But retiring doesn’t mean sitting idle.
“I like that this job gives me quite a lot of scope to pursue my own interests and do things in a way that I think might work,” he says. “If I was retired, I could just follow areas that interested me. Learn new stuff. Get into whatever was interesting.”
Outside work, music is his main passion—just look at the wall of CDs behind him during video calls. Nobody buys CDs anymore, he points out, but they’ll come back just like vinyl did. He plays video games to wind down, walks his dogs, and starts his days early with coffee.
His go-to work snack is mixed nuts and dried fruit, though Pringles make more appearances than they should. “We deliberately don’t keep them in the house because they don’t last long.”
The best place he’s travelled?
A Dutch town he stumbled upon by bike. Fraser and his partner were cycling in the Netherlands about a decade ago when they rode into Almere.
“This place is amazing. I want to live here,” he remembers thinking. “That was that.”
They nearly moved. It didn’t work out, but the memory stuck.
If he could have dinner with any scientist, he’d pick Carl Sagan because of the way he explained complex ideas with enthusiasm and clarity. “I think he’d really communicate exactly how he felt about things and actually be able to educate me.”
One misconception about his job? “People just assume if you know about computers, you can help them fix whatever,” Fraser says. “It’s relating to things I’ve never touched in my life, but it kind of goes with the territory that you become everybody’s tech support consultant.”
When development is done well, Fraser believes it should melt into the background. But at a company this size, there’s room to leave your mark. And after three decades moving from design to code and back again, he’s found a good balance at Bitesize Bio.
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