Front-End Engineer

Manulife/John Hancock; Southwestern Ontario; Hybrid; CAD 86,000 - 136,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health

Dental

Mental health

Vision

Disability insurance

Life and AD&D insurance

Adoption/ wellness benefits

Employee assistance program

Pension plan

Employee share ownership

Job summary

Manulife/John Hancock is seeking a Front-End Engineer to help build a reusable React component library aligned with our enterprise design system. You will design accessible APIs, extend Next.js documentation, and contribute to AI-native tooling to deliver consistent, on-brand experiences across web and mobile platforms.

You will collaborate with designers, architects, and product teams in a hybrid Canada-based role, shaping a scalable front-end platform for thousands of engineers and product

Qualifications

• 5+ years building production front-end applications or shared libraries.
• Deep hands-on expertise in React and TypeScript, plus modern CSS.
• Practical accessibility experience: semantic HTML, ARIA, focus and keyboard management, and testing with assistive technology.
• Experience building reusable libraries, design systems, or shared platforms consumed by other engineers, with genuine empathy for developer experience.
• Testing discipline across unit, integration, visual regression, and automated accessibility checks.
• Familiarity with monorepos, CI/CD, release automation, and semantic versioning movement to change the engineering culture of an enterprise.
• Strong verbal and written communication, with the ability to articulate technical vision, trade-offs, and outcomes to both engineers and leadership.

Responsibilities

• Build the libraries: Design, build, and maintain accessible, well-tested React components, design tokens, and tooling that align to and support the enterprise design system.
• Own accessibility: Strive to achieve WCAG 2.2 AA level. Implement ARIA authoring practices, keyboard interaction, and assistive technology support so that every consuming team inherits compliance by default.
• Design APIs that last: Shape component APIs used by hundreds of applications. Think in terms of backwards compatibility, semantic versioning, deprecation paths, and migration guidance — not just the next release.
• Enable adoption: Extend our Next.js documentation platform, live code sandbox, examples, and Figma Code Connect integration so teams can learn, adopt, and stay current with minimal friction.
• Advance AI-native tooling: Contribute to our MCP server, Copilot agent skills, LLM-friendly documentation endpoints, and generative UI guardrails so AI agents produce accessible, on-brand interfaces that stay inside our design system rather than around it.
• Think beyond React: Help evolve a shared headless component core so component logic is built once and shipped across web, mobile, and future platforms.
• Support the community: Triage issues, review external contributions, and unblock delivery teams. Our support channel is one of the largest active engineering communities in the company.
• Collaborate with designers, architects, and product teams: Partner across disciplines in an agile delivery model to identify pain points and accelerate delivery of new business value.

Skills

React

TypeScript

Accessibility

Library development

Testing

CI/CD

Agile

Communication

Tools

Next.js

Figma

Job description

Do you want to be part of a team that redefines how we get work done? We are changing the way we develop, and we want you to be part of it! We are growing, with the mandate to power world-class customer and employee experience through software and engineering skills. The customer is at the focus of everything we do, and tens of thousands of end users rely on our products daily. We believe in the value of empowering engineers with resources to solve critical problems for the future of the business, which is why we need you. Front-End Foundations is the enablement team behind our internal React component library that implements Manulife's design system. It powers 100+ active digital properties across our Canadian and US segments, is endorsed at the enterprise architecture level as our standard for React development and has an active engineering community of over 1,000 people. We solve common front-end problems once, then make those solutions available to every product team.

We are seeking a self-motivated Front-End Engineer to help build the components, tooling, documentation, and AI capabilities that thousands of Manulife engineers depend on daily. This is a product engineering role: the library is the product, and developers are the customers.

Position Responsibilities

• Build the libraries: Design, build, and maintain accessible, well-tested React components, design tokens, and tooling that align to and support the enterprise design system.
• Own accessibility: Strive to achieve WCAG 2.2 AA level. Implement ARIA authoring practices, keyboard interaction, and assistive technology support so that every consuming team inherits compliance by default.
• Design APIs that last: Shape component APIs used by hundreds of applications. Think in terms of backwards compatibility, semantic versioning, deprecation paths, and migration guidance — not just the next release.
• Enable adoption: Extend our Next.js documentation platform, live code sandbox, examples, and Figma Code Connect integration so teams can learn, adopt, and stay current with minimal friction.
• Advance AI-native tooling: Contribute to our MCP server, Copilot agent skills, LLM-friendly documentation endpoints, and generative UI guardrails so AI agents produce accessible, on-brand interfaces that stay inside our design system rather than around it.
• Think beyond React: Help evolve a shared headless component core so component logic is built once and shipped across web, mobile, and future platforms.
• Support the community: Triage issues, review external contributions, and unblock delivery teams. Our support channel is one of the largest active engineering communities in the company.
• Collaborate with designers, architects, and product teams: Partner across disciplines in an agile delivery model to identify pain points and accelerate delivery of new business value.

Required Qualifications

• 5 or more years building production front-end applications or shared libraries, ideally in complex enterprise environments
• Deep hands-on expertise in React and TypeScript, plus modern CSS
• Practical accessibility experience: semantic HTML, ARIA, focus and keyboard management, and testing with assistive technology
• Experience building reusable libraries, design systems, or shared platforms consumed by other engineers, with genuine empathy for developer experience
• Testing discipline across unit, integration, visual regression, and automated accessibility checks
• Familiarity with monorepos, CI/CD, release automation, and semantic versioning movement to change the engineering culture of an enterprise
• Strong verbal and written communication, with the ability to articulate technical vision, trade-offs, and outcomes to both engineers and leadership
• Familiarity with agile and DevOps principles, test-driven development, continuous integration, and other software engineering best practices

Preferred Qualifications

• A capacity for constant learning from both success and failure, remaining open to change and continuous improvement
• An entrepreneurial spirit and comfort working within a rapidly changing environment; you love the challenge of working on a small team and being part of a larger
• Curiosity about AI-assisted development and how agents consume design systems and structured component knowledge

When you join our team

We’ll empower you to learn and grow the career you want. We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words. As part of our global team, we’ll support you in shaping the future you want to see.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit https://www.manulife.com/en/about/our-story.html.

Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife/John Hancock, we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law. It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact [e-mail].

Referenced Salary

Location Waterloo, Ontario Working Arrangement Hybrid Salary range is expected to be between $86,100.00 CAD - $136,100.00 CAD. Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact [e-mail] for the salary range for your location.

Benefits

• Health
• Dental
• Mental health
• Vision
• Short-and long-term disability
• Life and AD&D insurance coverage
• Adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits
• Employee/family assistance plans

• Retirement savings plans, including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions
• Financial education and counseling resources

• Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence.

If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact [e-mail] for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

Data Use and Privacy

We use data and analytics technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and automated processing tools, to analyze and process the information you provide to us or third parties in the application process. For more information, please refer to our personal information collection statement.

Mission

We're Manulife. And we’re on a mission to make decisions easier and lives better. Better is what drives us. It’s what inspires us to find new ways to support customers and colleagues in living longer and healthier lives. It’s the reason we’re dedicated to investing in digital innovation and industry-leading AI, and accelerating a sustainable and economically inclusive future.

Rewards and Recognition

• 2026 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award Winner
• Manulife Named one of Forbes World’s Best Employers 2025
• Financial Times World’s Best Employers Asia-Pacific 2026
• We’ve been recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers 2026
• #1 Life Insurer for AI Maturity by Evident 2026

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