Lead Frontend Engineer - Engine

Gen; New York (NY); On-site; USD 218,400 - 239,200; Full time

Job summary

Gen, a leader in Digital Freedom solutions, is hiring a Lead Engineer in New York, NY. This position requires a deeply experienced front-end engineer with 10+ years of web application development experience. The role emphasizes collaboration, technical quality, and leveraging AI tools for development. Candidates should have strong TypeScript and React knowledge, alongside a Bachelor's degree in a related field. The compensation range is $218.4K - $239.2K annually, reflecting the importance of this role in the company.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building production web applications.
• 2+ years as a Principal Engineer.
• Ability to articulate complex technical trade-offs.

Responsibilities

• Take ownership for high-quality design and code reviews.
• Collaborate with product and design teams.
• Architect and build resilient systems.

Skills

TypeScript

React

Functional programming

Testing pyramid knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or engineering

Tools

Cursor (or equivalent AI-augmented IDEs)

Job description

About Gen Gen is a global company dedicated to powering Digital Freedom through its trusted consumer brands including Norton, Avast, LifeLock, MoneyLion and more. Our combined heritage is rooted in financial empowerment and cyber safety for the first digital generations, and today we deliver award-winning cybersecurity, online privacy, identity protection and financial wellness solutions to nearly 500 million users in more than 150 countries. Together, we share a collective passion and vision to protect consumers and help them grow, manage and secure their digital and financial lives. We’re always looking for smart, fearless and high-impact talent who see AI as a teammate – leveraging it to move faster and deliver meaningful results. When you’re part of Gen, you’ll have the flexibility, tools and support to do your best work and grow your career – from flexible working options and time off to competitive pay, benefits and well-being programs. At Gen, we are scrappy and relentlessly customer driven. We create room for healthy debate, experimentation and continuous learning, and we seek out people with different experiences, identities and ideas to join our team. You’ll work with people who back each other, respect each other and understand that our differences are a competitive advantage. If this sounds like you, we’d love you to be part of Gen.

About The Role

Engine by Gen partners with leading Financial Institutions to surface the richest, most comprehensive set of personalized financial product offers to the consumer. We are looking for an experienced Lead Engineer to support our world‑class financial products marketplace. We’re looking for a deeply experienced front‑end engineer with full‑stack fluency who brings strong judgment and a thoughtful critical perspective. This role is not about producing baseline code quickly. Modern AI tools can do that. It’s about collaboration, setting direction, making sound decisions, and driving technical quality. You will leverage AI agents as force multipliers while maintaining a high bar for correctness, maintainability, testability, and operational excellence. Success here depends on engineering judgment—choosing the right solution, not just producing code.

Key Responsibilities

• Take Ownership: You’ll be accountable for upholding a high bar for quality through design reviews, code reviews, test strategy, and production readiness.
• Collaborate cross-functionally: Partner with product, design, and fellow engineers to shape solutions, clarify tradeoffs, and deliver reliably.
• Architect for change: Design and build full-stack, frontend-leaning systems that are intentionally small, composable, and resilient to evolving product requirements.
• Improve Performance & Quality: Enforce architectural and operational quality, catching subtle issues that are easy to miss in fast-moving, AI-assisted development.
• Champion Functional Patterns: Champion functional programming principles and immutability to reduce side effects and make systems simpler to reason through and debug.
• Lead AI-assisted Development: You’ll use AI assistants/agents for prototyping, scaffolding, refactoring, and exploratory development, then harden the result and rigorously validate through tests, reasoning, and edge‑case review.
• Raise quality through testing: Build and maintain a strong automated test suite of unit, integration/contract, component/UI, and end‑to‑end coverage, with fast feedback loops in CI.

About You

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience building production web applications and 2+ years as a Principal Engineer.
• Expert‑level proficiency with TypeScript, strong experience with React, server‑side rendered Next.js (or similar), and performant component‑driven development (e.g. Reshaped UI).
• Deep understanding and experience with the orchestration and composition of calls across multiple services.
• Ability to articulate complex technical trade‑offs to stakeholders and translate product vision into high‑fidelity technical direction.
• Demonstrated development of simple, reusable, changeable systems (with examples of refactors, platforming work, or scalable patterns).
• Preference for functional programming and a deep understanding of why immutability is critical in modern software development.
• Advanced knowledge of the testing pyramid and how to use automated tests as a safety net for rapid, iterative development.
• Proven technical leadership through mentorship, delegation, and high‑quality code reviews.

AI‑Assisted Engineering Expectations

• Hands‑on experience with tools like Cursor (or equivalent AI‑augmented IDEs) and all modern coding models.
• Practical understanding of where AI is strong vs. where it falls short, paired with sound discernment in its application.
• Ability to use AI agents to quickly project multiple approaches, compare tradeoffs, and converge on the best solution without shipping "AI‑shaped" code.

Personal Attributes

• Proactive problem‑solver who identifies issues and opportunities before they become blockers, taking ownership without waiting to be asked.
• Relentlessly curious — constantly asking "why" and "what if," driven to understand systems deeply rather than accepting surface‑level answers.
• Genuinely passionate about the craft of software engineering, not just the output — the kind of person who gets excited about an elegant solution.
• Thrives in collaborative environments, elevating teammates through knowledge sharing, constructive code reviews, and open dialogue.
• Growth‑oriented mindset with a demonstrated hunger to learn new technologies, paradigms, and approaches — and to apply them meaningfully.
• Holds a high quality bar for implementation — writes clean, well‑tested, maintainable code and expects the same from the codebase around them.
• Refuses to normalize technical debt — doesn’t walk past bad code; actively advocates for and drives improvements to code health and engineering standards.
• Self‑starter who can operate with ambiguity, break down complex problems independently, and drive initiatives from idea to delivery.
• Continuously invests in their own development through reading, experimentation, side projects, open‑source contributions, or community involvement.
• Balances pragmatism with rigor — knows when to ship and when to push back, always grounded in what’s best for the product and the team.

What’s Next

• Code Review Assessment
• Recruiter Interview
• Hiring Manager Interview
• Final Round (in person or virtual)

Gen is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re committed to fair, inclusive practices at every stage of the candidate and employee journey. Employment decisions are based on merit, experience and business needs.

Compensation Range: $218.4K - $239.2K