Front-End Engineer

United States Digital Space LLC; St Albans; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is hiring a Front-End Engineer in a hybrid role based in St Albans. You will build fast, accessible web experiences across devices, shaping our e-commerce platforms and customer journeys. You’ll work with Product, Design, Testing and Data to define front-end standards and improve performance.

The role emphasizes modern practices, automated testing, and continuous improvement, with a strong focus on accessibility and scalable architecture.

Qualifications

• Strong experience building complex, scalable front-end architectures.
• Strong understanding of static typing and generics in TypeScript.
• Production experience with Next.js, App Router/Pages Router, SSR/SSG/ISR.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain responsive, high-performing web applications and libraries.
• Translate designs into accessible customer journeys with a mobile-first approach.
• Write clean, maintainable code following SOLID principles and participate in code reviews.

Skills

React

TypeScript

Next.js

Web fundamentals

Responsive design

Tools

Vercel

Job description

Circa £50,000 plus discretionary bonus and benefits

Hybrid role 2 days a week in St Albans

About the company

the company is the UK’s leading comparison platform for home-moving services, connecting customers with trusted Conveyancers, Surveyors and Removal Companies. As a digital marketplace, we generate high-intent customer leads and real commercial value for our partners.

About the Role

We’re looking for a talented Front-End Engineer to join our Technology team and help shape the future of our e-commerce platforms and customer experiences.

You’ll build fast, accessible, scalable user experiences across desktop, tablet and mobile, working closely with Product, Design, Testing and Data. You’ll contribute to technical decisions, help define front-end standards and join an engineering team that values excellence, automation, learning and modern software practices.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Front-end development: Design, build and maintain responsive, high-performing web applications and reusable component libraries, contributing to architecture and technical design.
• UX and customer focus: Translate high-fidelity designs into intuitive customer journeys, championing mobile-first, inclusive and accessible design.
• Engineering excellence: Write clean, maintainable code using SOLID principles and design patterns, take part in code reviews and support engineering maturity.
• Testing and quality: Support a quality-first approach through automated tests, debugging and robust production-ready solutions.
• Continuous improvement: Keep up to date with modern frameworks, tools and trends to improve developer productivity and application performance.

Skills & Experience

Core stack

• React: Strong experience building complex, scalable architectures using advanced component patterns including Compound Components, Render Props, Custom Hooks and Controlled/Uncontrolled components.
• TypeScript: Strong understanding of static typing, generics and highly typed, self-documenting code.
• Next.js and Vercel: Production experience with App Router/Pages Router, SSR, SSG, ISR, optimisation and deployment within Vercel.
• Web fundamentals and UI: Strong understanding of the Critical Rendering Path, Browser Event Loop, HTML5, semantic markup, Flexbox, Grid and modern styling such as CSS Modules, Tailwind CSS or Styled Components.
• Responsive design and accessibility: Mobile-first delivery, cross-browser troubleshooting and WCAG 2.1/ARIA implementation for inclusive interfaces.

API, architecture and security

• RESTful APIs: Confident use of HTTP methods, status codes, payload design and clean parsing of nested JSON with TypeScript.
• API clients: Build resilient data-fetching with fetch or Axios, including interceptors for token injection, retry logic, request deduplication and timeout handling.
• Protocols and security: Understand HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, HTTPS, CORS, preflight requests, secure headers, OWASP Top 10 risks including XSS, CSRF and injection, plus OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SSO, MFA and secure Bearer token management.

Performance, state and data

• Performance: Reduce bundle size through code-splitting, dynamic imports, tree-shaking, asset/font optimisation and Core Web Vitals including LCP, FID/INP and CLS.
• State and caching: Client-side state management such as Zustand, Redux Toolkit or React Context, balanced with server-state tools such as TanStack/React Query or SWR for cache invalidation, background revalidation and optimistic UI updates.
• Browser caching: Use HTTP headers, Cache-Control, ETag, LocalStorage, SessionStorage and IndexedDB effectively.

Technical integration and delivery

• CMS and integration: Consume content from headless CMS platforms, ideally Umbraco, Contentful or similar, via REST or GraphQL APIs.
• Marketing and SEO: Implement technical SEO including metadata and schema markup, plus GA4, Google Tag Manager and tracking pixels.
• Workflow: Git, Gitflow or trunk-based development, automated CI/CD and Agile/Scrum delivery.
• Testing: Unit and integration testing using Jest, Vitest or React Testing Library.

Desirable but not essential

• E-commerce: Exposure to e-commerce or Headless Commerce environments.
• GraphQL: Familiarity with queries, mutations and schemas.
• Testing and cloud: Exposure to Playwright or Cypress, and Azure or other cloud platforms.
• Design and analytics: Familiarity with performance monitoring, analytics tools and design systems.

What Success Looks Like

• Delivery: High-quality, reliable, performant customer-facing e-commerce features.
• Quality: Improved automated test coverage and code quality using tools such as ESLint and Prettier.
• Collaboration: A collaborative engineering culture and stronger frontend standards.
• Growth: Ongoing technical and professional development while supporting team delivery.

Why Join Us?

• Impact: Work on meaningful e-commerce products used by real customers every day.
• Tech stack: Use a modern technology stack and forward-thinking software practices.
• Culture: Join a collaborative, supportive engineering environment that values ownership.
• Growth: Influence architecture, shape frontend standards and grow professionally.

Recruitment process

• Virtual HR interview with the HR Manager – approximately 1 hour.
• First interview with the Software Development Manager – approximately 1 hour.
• Technical test.
• Final face-to-face interview with the Software Development Manager and Head of Technology – approximately 1 hour.

the company is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to an inclusive environment. We recognise the benefits of a diverse workforce that reflects the wider population and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

We are unable to sponsor employment visas and can only accept applications from candidates with permanent Right to Work in the UK or indefinite leave to remain.