Western Power: Website, Portal & Outages Map
Lead developer on the public outages map serving 1M+ customers across 255,000+ km², the single public outage-status channel for Western Australia's entire populated south-west.
The Programme
Western Power is a state government-owned corporation responsible for electricity distribution across Western Australia. This was one continuous body of work across three components (the public website rebuild, the customer portal, and the real-time outages map), delivered over roughly eighteen months as the relationship deepened from contributor to lead.
The Progression
I was promoted to front-end squad leader within 3 weeks of joining the website rebuild, moving from contributor to leading the front-end team. The arc across the programme went from portal contributor → squad lead → lead developer on the outages map, the most visible and most critical feature in the entire programme.
MyWP Customer Portal (late 2022)
Front-end developer on the self-service portal for commercial and residential customers managing connection and development projects, part of a large delivery team peaking at 30+ developers across front-end, back-end, D365, and UX/UI disciplines. The technical challenge was an intricate API integration between PowerApps, Dynamics 365, Azure and a legacy application, four systems that needed to present as one seamless customer experience.
I moved up through the ranks and became highly regarded across all development teams: back-end, D365, front-end, and UX/UI. I provided hypercare for Release 1, debugging across front-end, back-end, and integrations, understanding the full stack including API management through Mulesoft and Azure B2C authentication styling. I also identified and escalated a critical project risk that others had overlooked, driving action that helped turn a troubled delivery into a strong success.
Website Rebuild (early–mid 2023)
Second lead front-end / full-stack developer on the complete rebuild: Optimizely CMS, Vue.js and a Storybook component library following atomic design concepts. Promoted to front-end squad leader within 3 weeks. This was my first major production Storybook implementation, and the component-driven workflows I established here carried directly into later design-system work at Insight.
The Outages Map
Lead developer on the centrepiece feature, and my #1 career highlight. The outages map provides real-time outage visibility across a network serving more than one million customers across 255,000+ km², the single public outage-status channel for Western Australia’s entire populated south-west.
The technical challenge was integrating ArcGIS mapping with Vue.js to deliver responsive, accessible real-time visualisation of outage data. The map needed to handle everything from a single-street outage to major weather events affecting thousands of customers simultaneously.
Key technical decisions:
- Vue.js component architecture with Storybook for development and documentation
- ArcGIS JavaScript SDK integration for geospatial rendering
- Real-time data feed integration with .NET backend services
- Optimizely CMS integration for content management
- Mulesoft API management layer
- Azure B2C authentication flow styling
- Responsive design supporting mobile through desktop
- Siteimprove for quality assurance and accessibility verification
The new site launched on 31 October 2023 and remains live and in active use.
Beyond Code
Throughout the programme I was consulting in high-level architecture and management meetings and mentoring junior development and testing team members. The combination of hands-on delivery with architectural input and team development is what made the squad lead promotion stick. I wasn’t just writing features, I was shaping how the team worked.
Why This Matters
This is the only case study in my portfolio that is entirely public-domain verified. Western Power is a state government-owned corporation; everything here is public record, independently checkable by any hiring manager. You can visit westernpower.com.au/outages right now and see it working.
The progression from contributor to squad lead in 3 weeks, then to lead developer on the flagship feature, demonstrates the ability to earn trust rapidly and deliver end-to-end within a complex enterprise programme. The speed of learning across an unfamiliar stack (Vue.js, Storybook, ArcGIS, Mulesoft, Optimizely) and the breadth from component library through API integration to release coordination demonstrates full end-to-end delivery capability.
Hard Skills
Vue.js, Storybook, Tailwind CSS, .NET, Optimizely CMS, ArcGIS, Mulesoft API management, PowerApps, Dynamics 365, Azure, Azure B2C, Azure DevOps, Postman, Siteimprove, WCAG accessibility, atomic design, component libraries
Soft Skills
Team leadership (squad lead in 30+ dev programme), mentoring junior developers and testers, architecture consulting, requirements analysis, stakeholder management, risk identification and escalation, hypercare and release coordination, cross-stack debugging (FE/BE/integrations), rapid technology uptake