Principal Frontend Engineer
Role: Principal Front-End Engineer
Location/Time zones: US-based (East Coast preferred; Mountain works).
Work setup: Remote (high-ownership, small team).
Mission: Lead the front-end technical direction for a geospatial product used in a fragile/mission-sensitive deployment environment.
What you’ll do
- Set front-end architecture and technical standards for a TypeScript/React application.
- Design scalable UI patterns for complex geospatial workflows (Cesium) and surrounding app features.
- Establish best practices for state management, component architecture, performance, testing, and maintainability.
- Partner with engineering leadership to plan, prioritize, and deliver high-impact product work.
- Mentor engineers through code reviews, architecture discussions, and practical implementation guidance.
- Drive execution: this role is hands-on and coding-heavy, not a “pure strategy” position.
What we’re looking for
- 8+ years building and scaling front-end systems; deep React + TypeScript expertise.
- Strong architectural judgment: you can balance “build fast” with “don’t paint us into a corner.”
- Track record leading complex UI work (interactive, data-heavy apps; performance matters).
- Experience working with design systems / component libraries (we’re using MUI; Tailwind is optional/uncertain).
- Ability to operate in a fast-moving environment with minimal process overhead.
- Excellent communication: you can align teammates around patterns and decisions without slowing delivery.
Nice-to-haves
- GIS / geospatial domain experience (Cesium, mapping frameworks, geo interactions, coordinate systems, etc.).
- Experience with visualization libraries (not required; product is more geospatial + UI workflows than pure D3).
- Backend familiarity (API design, debugging cross-stack issues).
- Prior work on simulation platforms, gaming-adjacent UI paradigms, or real-time systems.
Why this role / why now
As the product grows, we want a principal-level front-end leader who can keep the system coherent while still shipping quickly—especially around geospatial UX and performance.
Interview process (example)
- Intro call (context + scope)
- Architecture + deep-dive interview (with FE + leadership)
- Practical exercise or portfolio/work-sample review focused on real product complexity
- Final discussions / references