Rachel Andrew – Doing stuff on the web since 1996.

I started edgeofmyseat.com in September 2001. I was a young single mother with a background as a dancer, staggering out of the dotcom meltdown, with a tiny grant from The Prince’s Trust and a belief that my ability to sniff out and fix problems in code...

Facebook reminds me that it’s been 11 years since I went for an ill-advised run in the snow, fell, and shattered my elbow. I’ve had four surgeries since—the initial one to reconstruct it, with a bunch of metal. Two to remove the metal, and one in 20...

Here we are again, with another year completed. I’ve now been at Google for over two years, I’ve managed to avoid collecting any additional cats or new broken bones, but I have gained a son-in-law!
Work
2023 was the most challenging year of my career to date. Previous downturns in the industry haven’t posed much of a problem to me. I’ve found there to be more work for a scrappy freelancer in lean years, not less, especially if you are someone who doesn...

My daughter came to stay for a few days at Christmas, and we pulled out a box of old photographs. I found this photo of me, taken in December of 1996. I was 21 and pregnant, and had just been let go from my backstage job in the theatre. The computer...