Serena Piccioni

Senior Software Engineer

Hi, my name is Serena.
My job is Senior Software Engineer, and I have over 25 years of experience in the digital and IT industry.

Throughout my career I have also held roles as team leader, mentor and line manager. Problem-solving is my core competency, but I also have high-level skills in cloud architecture, data management, software security and general software management.

I started in 1998 by creating HTML pages and taking an ASP 3.0 course. In 1999, I completed my first website based on ASP 3.0, Access and HTML, and then worked as a Webmaster for some web agencies. In 2007, I did my first PHP project; in 2008, I built a business website based on WordPress.

My primary skills are WordPress, PHP, Databases, JavaScript, CSS and HTML. I made a speech at WordCamp Milan in 2019 about How to develop themes with Timber and Twig, and one at WordCamp Verona in 2023 about Block Editor tricks for lazy people.

Skills

Problem-solving • Information Architecture • User Experience • User Interface • Web Development • E-commerce • Project Management • Mentoring

PHP, Python, Perl • JavaScript, CSS, HTML • GIT, SVN, CVS • REST API, SOAP • WordPress, Django, Zend, Symfony, Laravel • MySQL, Apache, Nginx • Linux, Ubuntu, CentOS • AWS, Docker

Education

WP Development Courses: Building Custom Blocks, Teach:able, 2023

November 2023, a masterclass for WordPress professionals that want to master custom block development

Advanced PHP, Training Dragon, London (UK), 2016

21 – 24 March 2016, a four-day course about Advanced PHP web programming, including OOP, MVC, and introduction to MVC framework (with course completion certificate).

Rails Girls Milan, WCAP Accelerator, Milan (Italy), 2013

14 and 15 November 2013, a two-day Ruby and Ruby on Rails course.

Learning Drupal: Global Training Day, Wellnet S.R.L., Milan (Italy), 2012

14 September 2012, a one-day course about the structure and functionalities of Drupal.

Java Programming Language (SL-275), SUN Microsystems Italia, Milan (Italy), 2005

The Java Programming Language course provides students with a solid foundation for programming with Java, including information about the syntax of the Java programming language; object-oriented programming with the Java programming language; creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs), exceptions, file input/output (I/O), and threads; and networking.

European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan (Italy), 2004

ECDL is the International standard in digital skills’ certification; I am certified in all the standard modules.

System Administrator Training at ISOPIA INC., Toronto, Ontario (Canada), 2000

13 and 14 November 2000 (with course completion certificate).

Laurea in Filosofia (Bachelor in Philosophy), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan (Italy), 1998

Thesis title: I software didattici multimediali: una ricognizione critica (Multimedia educational software: a critical analysis). This is a formal 4-year degree followed by a research thesis; its best approximation in the UK would be Bachelor plus Master (3+2).

Teaching and publications

Centro Italiano Formazione Aggiornamento (CIFA)

2004

I was a JavaScript, VBScript, SQL, ASP, and XML teacher for the European Social Fund course Esperto Web Developer (Web Developer Expert).

Talentnet

2002

I was an HTML, JavaScript, VBScript, SQL and ASP teacher for the Master Web Developer.

About me

Anthony O'Malley
Interaction designer, WordPress developer

I have had the pleasure of working with Serena for many years, initially at Helpful Digital and later at dxw. Throughout our time together, Serena impressed me with her competence as a developer and her ability to improve team workflows, refine development approaches, and elevate our overall standards.
Serena is constantly learning and always seeking to expand her knowledge. She has a wealth of experience and technical expertise. As a designer, I always found her approachable and effective at communicating with both technical and non-technical colleagues and collaborating as part of a multidisciplinary team.
Serena’s patience, approachable nature, and consistent voice of reason were always a source of relief for me. Her practicality and problem-solving skills often helped steer teams towards well-reasoned and sensible solutions.
Lastly, Serena is good-natured and easy to get along with, making her a pleasure to work with daily. I am sorry I am no longer be working with her! Any team would be lucky to have her.

Jamie Ellen
Recruitment Consultant

Serena is a seriously talented and intelligent developer. She overcomes the most difficult obstacles with ease and what makes her that real catch is that she has the ability to not only code to a high level, but to communicate to you so you can understand that the issue/ task properly. The complexities are best left to Serena, you will be in great hands!

Thomas Randell
Senior Full-stack engineer (Tech Lead)

Serena joined the team when we were looking for someone to fix-up, audit and maintain some WordPress sites we had.
She very quickly moved on from this to helping bring in-house some massive PHP projects built in codeigniter and laravel. In spite of the tight migration deadlines (one was literally dropped on us!), she managed to get all of this done including handling the logistics of moving over the code and domains and she was implementing new fixes and additions in super quick time.
On top of handling legacy systems, Serena has done a fantastic job of improving the backend architecture for shots.net and built the shots showreel from scratch.
I've recently promoted her to senior developer to recognise the fact that I have complete confidence in Serena to architect projects properly from the database to the code to the azure setup. She understands the parameters of the business and is able to work within them whilst still creating really high quality work.
She has also helped in finding new ways to make the team more efficient - she was critical in setting up a team slack along with integrations for bitbucket and JIRA. She is regularly attending meetup events and feeding back to the group and she has a clear passion for everything tech.
Outside of her tech skills, Serena can be somewhat shy at first but is really good at talking to stakeholders; capturing requirements and showcasing her work, ensuring the non-tech members of a project understand what is going on.
Serena has adopted the role of mentor/supervisor to our new developer; helping him write effective code in python, django, HTML/CSS/js/jQuery and PHP.
In summary, Serena is a truly full-stack developer who actively gets involved in every aspect of the SDLC, mentors new staff, works with stakeholders and is always looking for ways to improve the team. She is one of those one-man-army kind of developers who you can give a couple of weeks and a half-thought idea to and she'd come back with a fully working, scalable solution leveraging the best technologies.

Pierfrancesco Costantini
Technical Product Manager

I worked with Serena in WSC. Highly professional, she is able to be in touch with customers as with friends and get the most benefit from this behaviour.

Nicola Possenti
Head of Digital Project

Serena is bright, nice and tough at the same time. She is a good technician and a very reliable professional. We did work together on different goals but we often exchanged ideas. I was happy to have her in my Company.

Veronica Nicosia
Insurance Underwriting Key Account

I've have had the pleasure to work with Maria Serena.
She's highly skilled person, serious, and a very great worker.
Strongly recommend!!

Carlo Cicognini
Operations - Product & Service Design Director

Serena is a highly skilled person in both technical and design fields, with a very good background. She's a diligent worker with an always ready to learn attitude and has an eye for detail.

Let's get in touch

If you would like to get in touch, please send me an email.