Matthew Wren
Matthew Wren

Background

About

I've been building websites since 2011. Most of my work is for colleges and universities, but I take on small business projects too.

What I Do

I build things inside content management systems. Custom components, page templates, site migrations, performance audits. The kind of work where you hand a marketing team a CMS and they can actually use it without calling a developer every time they want to change a headline.

How I Got Here

I started in radio as a digital director at Entercom, managing websites and social for a handful of stations. That led to 11 years at the University of Scranton, where I built their digital publications from scratch and learned how large organizations manage web content — lots of stakeholders, lots of process.

Now I'm at Hannon Hill, where I support CMS implementations for dozens of colleges and universities. I write documentation, build custom components, handle technical troubleshooting, and run site audits. I've converted 20+ Figma designs into production code and built 50+ CMS components with documentation that non-technical editors can follow.

The through-line: I build things that teams can maintain on their own. The goal is always to hand off something that works without ongoing developer dependency.

Experience Timeline

Aug 2023 - Present

Web Development Support & Services · Hannon Hill

Remote (Atlanta, GA)

  • Write and maintain technical docs for CMS workflows, APIs, and troubleshooting procedures
  • Handle support tickets for higher ed clients covering a wide range of technical issues
  • Helped overhaul the internal knowledge base to improve discoverability and accuracy
  • Build custom components, run site migrations, and support CMS implementations for dozens of schools
Jun 2012 - Aug 2023

Web Designer/Developer · University of Scranton

Scranton, PA

  • Built The Scranton Journal digital publication from zero — fast, accessible, and still running
  • Integrated the university news site into Cascade CMS, including a mega-menu navigation system
  • Converted a non-responsive publication to mobile-friendly using Bootstrap and SCSS — presented the approach at Cascade User Conference 2016
  • Built components and templates with documentation good enough that non-technical staff could manage their own content
Aug 2011 - Jun 2012

Digital Director · Entercom

Pittston, PA

  • Ran digital for multiple radio stations — websites, social, promotional campaigns
  • First role where I saw the gap between managing content and making it good — shaped how I approach every project since

Selected Projects

Technical Audits (Multiple Universities)

Performance, accessibility, SEO, CMS architecture, browser compatibility. I run audits covering 400+ pages using Unlighthouse and Core Web Vitals, then write up what's actually worth fixing first.

Xavier University Component Library

50+ custom CMS components across seven categories. Each one documented with architecture details, field specs, rendered output, accessibility notes, and responsive behavior. The docs are the product.

Butte College CMS Integration

20+ custom components: decision trees, Instagram API feeds, responsive images, YouTube embeds, drag-and-drop page builder. Built documentation so editors could build pages without filing a ticket.

Lincoln University Publications System

Search, filtering, sorting, pagination. Two workflows depending on whether content lives on a page or as a downloadable file. Editors pick whichever fits.

The Scranton Journal

Built from scratch at the University of Scranton. Went through a full responsive redesign. Presented the responsive redesign approach at Cascade User Conference 2016.

Tools I Work With

  • Cascade CMS
  • Velocity
  • JavaScript
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Figma
  • Jira Service Desk
  • GitHub
  • Intercom
  • REST APIs
  • Web Services

How I Work

I document everything, keep scope tight, and write code that another developer can pick up without a lengthy walkthrough. A good project solves the problem it set out to solve — and doesn't create new ones.