Lead JavaScript Engineer

Jobtailor; Greater London; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Jobtailor is seeking a senior full-stack engineer to own and drive the tech strategy across the Encore platform. You will work across React/Node.js, DevOps tasks, and AI-assisted coding tools while mentoring a teammate and shaping the roadmap.

You’ll ensure a reliable, scalable platform as you expand both UK and US capabilities. Applicants must be eligible to work in the United Kingdom and comfortable operating autonomously as an IC in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• Lead-level engineering ownership in a production software environment.
• Strong full-stack experience with TypeScript/JavaScript, across the stack.
• Experience with React for frontend and Node.js/Express for backend services.
• Comfort moving between frontend web work and infrastructure/DevOps tasks.
• Experience with AI-assisted coding tools.
• Product/commercial mindset: weigh technical work against business impact.
• Strong communication skills and collaboration with stakeholders.
• Autonomy as an individual contributor.
• Familiarity with the stack: React Native/Expo, Railway, GitHub, Playwright, Vite/Vitest, Google Cloud, AWS, Twilio, Stripe.
• Eligible to work in the United Kingdom.

Responsibilities

• Transform Encore into a focused, intuitive self-serve platform for musicians and customers.
• Provide systems-level stewardship of strategy to tech/product teams.
• Mentor another full-stack engineer.
• Maintain tech infrastructure and fix critical issues promptly.
• Refine tech projects of strategic importance and reduce tech debt.
• Deliver on release cadence for strategic tech/product projects.
• Improve Encore features like messenger, job listings, search, and musician admin panels.
• Build-out USA platform with SEO landing pages and parity with UK platform.
• Align technical output with commercial priorities and remove bottlenecks.
• Keep the platform reliable with minimal downtime.
• Work with bespoke payments integrations (Stripe for US).
• Migrate WordPress blog off Digital Ocean onto Railway.

Skills

TypeScript/JavaScript

React

Node.js/Express

DevOps/Cloud

AI-assisted coding tools

Communication

Autonomy as IC

Tools

React Native/Expo

Railway

GitHub

Playwright

Vite/Vitest

Google Cloud

AWS

Twilio

Stripe

Job description

Responsibilities

• Transform Encore into a more focused, intuitive self-serve platform for both musicians and customers, making it seamless and delightful to use.
• Bring systems-level understanding and stewardship of strategy to the tech/product team (and across the company)
• Pastoral mentorship of another full-stack engineer
• Maintenance of our tech infrastructure (keeping downtime to a minimum, fixing critical bugs and team requests in a prioritised and timely manner)
• Continuous formation/refinement of tech projects of strategic importance (e.g., tech debt, stack modernisation)
• Deliver on the release cadence for tech/product projects of strategic importance
• Improve Encore key features including messenger, job listings, search and musician admin panels
• Continued build-out of the USA platform — SEO landing pages, musician-side functionality, and bringing the US experience up to parity with the UK platform
• Keep technical output closely and visibly aligned with commercial priorities, and always identify the highest‑impact work and the next bottleneck to remove
• Keep the platform reliable — minimising downtime and resolving critical bugs and team requests in a timely, well‑prioritised way
• Work with bespoke payment integrations, including Stripe for the US market
• Reduce tech debt on an ongoing basis — including migrating toward a more formalised meta framework and moving our WordPress blog off Digital Ocean and onto Railway

Requirements

• Lead-level engineering ownership in a production software environment
• Strong full‑stack experience with TypeScript/JavaScript — comfortable across the stack rather than specialised in just one layer
• Experience with React for frontend and Node.js/Express for backend services
• Comfort moving between frontend web work and infrastructure/DevOps tasks (containers, cloud configuration) — at Encore, engineers regularly jump between the two
• Experience working with AI‑assisted coding tools, such as Claude Code Skills, MCP servers and Routines.
• A product and commercial mindset: the ability to weigh technical work against business impact, prioritise ruthlessly, and know what to cut to ship faster
• Strong communication skills — you'll work closely with product, design, non-technical stakeholders, and leadership on technical priorities across the company
• Comfort operating with autonomy as an individual contributor; we don't micro‑manage, and you'll be trusted to make day‑to‑day technical decisions independently
• Experience with (or willingness to quickly get up to speed on) our stack: React Native/Expo, Railway, GitHub (incl. CI and end‑to‑end testing), Playwright, Vite/Vitest, Google Cloud, AWS, Twilio, and Stripe
• Eligible to work in the United Kingdom

Core Competencies

Demonstrates strong full-stack engineering capabilities with expertise in TypeScript, JavaScript, React, and Node.js/Express, while effectively balancing technical work with business impact. Proven ability to mentor, prioritise tasks, and maintain a reliable tech infrastructure in a production environment.