Web Developer & Designer

Ross Hunter

rosshunterdev.com
github.com/rosshunterdev
ross.hunter.crawford@gmail.com
Wellington, NZ · Available Dec 2026

Front-end developer with three years on the frontline of mental health and disability support, now building the digital tools those sectors run on. I bring lived knowledge of accessibility, vulnerable users, and people underserved by software, and I write code that reflects it. I build fast, accessible, framework-light sites for small businesses, healthcare practitioners, and people who think differently.

01

Selected Projects

Rhythm for the Soul Therapeutic drumming & music therapy business, Auckland
Astro v6 · Tailwind v4
  • Built 22 static pages on Astro v6 with Tailwind v4's @theme token system, shipping a full design system as CSS custom properties with zero runtime JavaScript beyond small inline scripts.
  • Diagnosed an Astro CSS-scoping failure on innerHTML-injected elements, fixed it with :global() wrappers, then refactored the design system to delete 1,720 lines of duplicated per-page CSS across 25 files in a single commit.
  • Shipped a complete accessibility baseline: focus-visible skip link, labelled landmarks, decorative aria-hidden, and prefers-reduced-motion support that disables scroll reveals, the loader, and the cursor ring.
  • Replaced a brittle transitionend modal with a pure CSS grid-template-rows slide, enforcing a transform/opacity-only animation rule with no layout reflow.
Drama Geeks Children's performing arts school, South Shields UK
HTML · CSS · JS
  • Built an 18-page marketing site with zero build tooling, deduplicating shared nav and footer through a hand-rolled partial-injection system that gates page fade-in on Promise.all of nav, footer, and font readiness.
  • Implemented a GDPR-compliant consent gate so the Instagram embed script never loads until the visitor opts in, persisting the choice in localStorage with a graceful declined state and no cookies set without consent.
  • Cut image weight by migrating every asset to WebP via a custom Node script, lazy-loading 71 images, preloading the LCP hero, and running all scroll listeners through requestAnimationFrame with passive flags.
  • Carried accessibility across all 18 pages: reduced-motion blocks, full ARIA state management, Escape-key focus return on the mobile drawer, and a <noscript> nav fallback on every page.
Sensoma Therapeutic massage practice, Wellington
Vanilla JS · CSS
  • Built a zero-dependency single-page site in 797 lines of namespaced vanilla JavaScript and a 40-token custom-property CSS system, no framework or build step, deployed on Netlify with hardened security headers.
  • Hand-built an availability-aware date picker from scratch, restricting bookings to set days with keyboard control and month navigation, while keeping a hidden native input so the form submits without JS.
  • Solved a sliding nav underline that fought between clicks and scroll-spy by driving position from layout offsets and adding a timestamp lock so scroll tracking yields to an in-flight click.
  • Cut rendered image payload by roughly 57% with a WebP pipeline, and added WAI-ARIA focus traps with Escape-to-close and focus restoration on the booking dialog and mobile menu.
SupportBridge & mobile builds Cross-platform tools informed by support-work experience
React Native · Next.js · Flutter
  • Architected SupportBridge as a React Native (Expo) and Next.js app in a Turborepo / pnpm monorepo with shared code across web and native targets.
  • Built two Flutter apps, a harm-reduction usage tracker and an ADHD-focused task manager, drawing design decisions directly from frontline disability and mental health support work.
02

Experience

Whānau Support Worker
NZ Community Living (NZCL) · Wellington
2024 — Present
  • Deliver 1:1 community support for a young person with complex needs, building independence and the kind of real user empathy I now design software around.
  • Maintain accurate records across CRM systems in a high-compliance health and disability environment, coordinating across healthcare providers, government agencies, and family networks.
Navigator / Support Worker
Emerge Aotearoa · Wellington
2020 — 2022
  • Provided crisis intervention and relationship-based support for young people in acute mental health settings, staying reliable and clear-headed under genuine pressure.
  • Built trust with highly disengaged people through consistent, non-judgemental engagement and coordinated structured referral pathways across multiple agencies.
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