Principal Frontend Engineer

As an early hire, you will have an opportunity to build as well as help architect our systems and platforms, including our development practices and processes. Many fundamental choices have not yet been made, so this greenfield background is an unusual opportunity to have broad ownership and the ability to define requirements and goals across product delivery, tools, and process.

Above all, you have a bias for action. You love getting product out the door and learning from tight feedback loops, and love the satisfaction you'll receive from knowing that your contributions are directly improving the security of data for millions of people in the world.

Responsibilities

• Architect scalable frontend infrastructure: Lead the technical vision and architectural design for the frontend, ensuring it can handle massive user loads, data volumes, and feature complexity inherent in a large-scale B2B SaaS platform. This involves making critical decisions on state management, data fetching strategies, build and deployment pipelines optimized for speed and resilience, and micro-frontend architectures if applicable. Collaborate with the team to develop a top-tier user interface, featuring advanced dashboard capabilities and complex data visualizations for both mobile and web platforms.
• Driving cross-team frontend consistency and best practices: Establish and evangelize frontend development standards, patterns, and tooling across multiple product teams. This includes creating shared component libraries, defining architectural guidelines, and leading initiatives to improve code quality, performance, and accessibility across the entire frontend ecosystem.
• Performance optimization at scale: Proactively identify and resolve critical frontend performance bottlenecks that impact user experience at a massive scale. This involves deep profiling, optimizing rendering paths, implementing advanced caching strategies, and potentially contributing to or collaborating with infrastructure teams on CDN and edge delivery optimizations. Seamlessly integrate front-end components with custom-built APIs.
• Leading strategic technical initiatives: Drive and own significant technical projects that have a broad impact on the frontend architecture and development processes. This could include migrating to new frontend frameworks, implementing cutting-edge performance techniques, or establishing a new approach to testing or observability for the frontend at scale. Craft and implement responsive, efficient interfaces using modern technologies like React.
• Mentoring and growing frontend engineering teams: Act as a technical mentor and guide for senior and staff-level frontend engineers, fostering their technical growth and leadership skills. This involves providing technical guidance on complex problems, facilitating knowledge sharing, and potentially contributing to the definition of career growth paths within the frontend organization.
• Provide technical leadership in developing our frontend architecture, emphasizing performance, scalability, and security.
• Partner with the product team to align development efforts with the product vision and roadmap.
• Stay ahead of the curve by researching and introducing cutting-edge front-end technologies and practices.

Requirements

• 10 to 14 years of experience in frontend development, with a strong portfolio showcasing your skills.
• Extensive experience with modern frontend frameworks and architectures: Frontend development experience with deep expertise in React and a proven track record of architecting and building complex, scalable frontend applications.
• Deep understanding of frontend performance and scalability challenges: In-depth knowledge of browser rendering pipelines, performance optimization techniques specific to React (e. g., memoization, virtualization), and strategies for building resilient and highly performant frontend applications that can handle massive user traffic and data.
• Proven ability to drive technical vision and influence engineering teams: Demonstrated experience in setting technical direction for frontend projects, influencing architectural decisions across multiple teams, and successfully leading significant technical initiatives with measurable impact, including the adoption of key frontend technologies and best practices.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills for cross-functional leadership: Excellent communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills to effectively work with product managers, designers, backend engineers (understanding basic backend concepts like APIs, databases), and other stakeholders to align on technical strategy and drive consensus on frontend architecture and standards.
• Experience with large-scale SaaS platforms and cloud environments: Prior experience working on complex, cloud-based B2B SaaS platforms, ideally with exposure to the unique challenges and considerations of operating at a massive scale. Familiarity with cloud platforms (e. g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and their impact on frontend deployment and performance is highly valued, alongside a solid understanding of how frontend applications interact with backend services and infrastructure.
• Advanced capabilities in technologies such as React, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Strong knowledge level of Typescript. Our Frontend team loves Typescript.
• Comprehensive understanding of the software development lifecycle, including testing, deployment, and operational best practices.
• Experience in redesigning and rebuilding UIs for commercial products.
• Knowledge of various Frontend design patterns, including composition and compounding components.
• Proven track record of developing and managing high-scale commercial SaaS products.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS preferred), and modern deployment tools like CI/CD, containers, and Terraform.
• Commitment to secure coding practices and a thorough understanding of the entire development and deployment process.

Bonus Qualifications

• BS, Master's, or PhD in computer science or related, or equivalent experience.
• Advanced knowledge of AWS Services.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Independent learner, with an open mind, and a team-oriented mentality, with the ability and willingness to grow.
• A background in cybersecurity or SaaS, particularly in Access, Identity, and Governance.

This job was posted by Venkatesh Ponnuswamy from Bicycle AI.