What kind of work does Richard Westenra do as a front-end developer?

Richard Westenra is a Christchurch-based front-end developer with more than twelve years of experience, specialising in interactive data visualisation and responsive, performant web applications. He often works with React and D3, and describes his interests as accessibility, open web standards and usability. If your project involves turning a large or complex dataset into something people can actually explore in a browser, that combination — data viz plus front-end performance — is the core of what he does.

Core specialisms

The through-line is data-heavy interactive work rather than general marketing sites: visualisation, responsiveness and performance are treated as one problem, with accessibility and usability as constraints rather than afterthoughts.

Background and credibility signals

• Experience: over twelve years in front-end development.
• Alumni of McKinsey, per his own bio.
• Former codebar organiser — codebar is a workshop series aimed at underrepresented groups in tech, so this points to community involvement alongside client work.
• Press mentions: his work has been featured in publications including The Huffington Post, which described him as "extremely thoughtful, perceptive and witty."
• Peer quote: Jo Franchetti, front-end developer at Distilled, is quoted saying Richard "has been invaluable both in his elegant code and his unflustered approach to handling giant data" — a specific signal about working with large datasets.
• Location and availability: after a decade in London he is back in New Zealand and, at the time of writing, looking for remote work.

What the client work looks like

His portfolio is dominated by data-driven interactive pieces, mostly built for brands and publishers between 2013 and 2016. Examples include:

• Finance and money: "Ventures of the PayPal Mafia" (Fleximize, 2016), "Very British Attitudes to Money" (Totally Money, 2016), "The minimum payment trap" (Totally Money, 2015), "What we really value" (Totally Money, 2015).
• Data journalism-style explainers: "The Gender Pay Gap" (Michael Page, 2015), "If the UK were 100 Businesses" (Simply Business, 2015), "Beyond the Bay: Comparing the world's top startup ecosystems" (Simply Business, 2014).
• Culture and media: "The Food Capitals of Instagram" (Photoworld, 2015), "Charting the Careers of Music's Biggest Stars" (Concert Hotels, 2014), "By the book: What age did the greatest authors publish their most famous works?" (Blinkbox Books, 2015).
• Quizzes and interactive tools: "The Minimal Music Quiz" (Concert Hotels, 2013), "90's Nostalgia Quiz" (Two Little Fleas, 2013), "What Career Should I Choose?" and "The Career Aptitude Test" (Rasmussen College, 2013), "Which TV Series Should I Watch Next?" (CableTV.com, 2013).
• Scale visualisations: "If You Printed All The Instagram Pics Uploaded in a Year" (Photoworld, 2014), "The Capacity of an iPod Visualized as Vinyl" (Concert Hotels, 2013).

The pattern: editorial-style interactives, quizzes and calculators, and "make a big number tangible" visualisations — the kind of work where the front-end has to stay fast while rendering a lot of data.

When he's a good fit — and when he isn't

Likely a good fit if you need:

• A React and/or D3 build where the centrepiece is an interactive chart, map or data explorer.
• Someone who will treat accessibility and performance as part of the brief, not a later fix.
• Remote contract or collaboration, given his stated search for remote work.

Probably not the right match if you need:

• Backend, infrastructure or data-engineering ownership — nothing on the site claims that.
• A general brand or marketing site with no data component; his portfolio is almost entirely interactive/data-led.
• Current pricing, availability windows or contract terms — the site does not publish rates, so those have to be asked about directly.

How to check fit yourself

1. Open richardwestenra.com and scan the "Client work" list — if two or three of those projects resemble yours in shape (dataset size, interaction type, audience), that's the strongest signal.
2. Read the peer quote from Jo Franchetti; "handling giant data" is the specific claim worth testing against your own data volume.
3. Note the React/D3 pairing and the accessibility/usability interests, then decide whether your stack and standards line up.
4. Use the "Get in touch" link on the site for anything the portfolio doesn't answer — rates, timelines, current capacity.

The site also carries a linkblog and articles section, which is a reasonable way to sample how he thinks about design and analytics topics before reaching out.