Sr. Front-End Engineer

Standard Template Labs; New York (NY); On-site; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative tech company in New York is seeking a Senior Front-End Engineer (AI-First) to lead the design and implementation of user-facing products. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience with modern JavaScript frameworks, particularly React and Next.js, and demonstrate strong skills in HTML, CSS, and UX design. You'll collaborate closely with Product, Design, and Backend Engineering teams to create intuitive, high-quality front-end experiences. The position allows for real ownership and influence on the product’s direction.

Qualifications

• Several years of professional front-end engineering experience, particularly with modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks.
• Strong mastery of HTML, CSS, and modern styling approaches.
• Experience integrating with backend APIs (REST/GraphQL).
• Experience building real-time UI components.

Responsibilities

• Own the front-end architecture for core product surfaces.
• Build responsive, accessible, and high-performance UIs.
• Design and develop a shared component library.
• Collaborate closely with backend engineers.

Skills

Front-end engineering experience

HTML, CSS

JavaScript frameworks (React, Next.js)

UX instincts

AI tools for development

Tools

Git

CI/CD workflows

Job description

The Role

We are seeking a Senior Front-End Engineer (AI-First) to join our small but growing engineering team. In this role, you’ll own and shape the user-facing product end to end: designing and building polished, high-performance interfaces, setting front-end technical direction, and leveraging AI-driven tools to accelerate development. You’ll partner closely with Product, Design, and Backend Engineering to turn complex enterprise workflows into intuitive, scalable front-end experiences.

This is a hands-on senior role with real ownership - ideal for someone who enjoys building, mentoring through example, and raising the bar for front-end quality across the product.

What You’ll Do

• Own the front-end architecture for core product surfaces, making thoughtful decisions around state management, data fetching, performance, and scalability.

• Build responsive, accessible, and high-performance UIs using modern front-end technologies (e.g. React, Next.js, TypeScript).

• Design, develop, and evolve a shared component library / design system, ensuring consistency, usability, and maintainability as the product grows.

• Collaborate closely with backend engineers to define API contracts (REST / SSE / GraphQL) and ensure smooth, efficient data flow between frontend and backend.

• Build AI-first, realtime user experiences, including streaming and interactive components that respond dynamically to backend and model outputs.

• Leverage AI-assisted development tools (code generation, refactoring, testing, linting, review) as a core part of your workflow to increase velocity while maintaining high code quality.

• Partner deeply with Product and Design to translate UX concepts and wireframes into production-ready features, proactively identifying edge cases, trade-offs, and implementation risks.

• Drive performance, accessibility, and quality across the front-end stack (load times, responsiveness, cross-browser support, a11y).

• Set and uphold high engineering standards: write clean, testable code; lead by example in code reviews; help define front-end best practices and patterns.

What We’re Looking For

Required / Core Skills

• Several years of professional front-end engineering experience (or equivalent), with deep hands-on experience building production applications using modern JavaScript / TypeScript frameworks (e.g. React, Next.js).

• Strong mastery of HTML, CSS, and modern styling approaches (CSS-in-JS, design tokens, component-based styling), with a deep understanding of browser behavior, layout, and performance.

• Proven experience owning and evolving complex front-end systems, not just implementing features.

• Experience integrating with backend APIs (REST / GraphQL / streaming APIs) and collaborating closely with backend teams on system design.

• Experience building or supporting realtime, streaming, or AI-driven UI components.

• Strong product and UX instincts - comfortable working with designers and product managers to refine flows, interactions, and edge cases.

• High standards for code quality and maintainability; experience with testing strategies, CI/CD workflows, and version control (Git).

• Strong interest in - and comfort with - AI-augmented engineering workflows, using AI tools to accelerate development without sacrificing correctness or quality.

Nice-to-Have / Preferred

• Experience building conversational or chat-based interfaces, including managing complex client-side state, streaming responses, and dynamic message flows (e.g. ChatGPT-style UIs).

• Prior ownership of a design system or shared component library used by multiple engineers or teams.

• Deep experience with TypeScript in large-scale front-end codebases.

• Strong background in performance optimization, accessibility (a11y), and cross-browser support at scale.

• Experience working in a fast-moving startup or AI-native product environment.

• Strong communication skills - able to clearly articulate UI constraints, technical trade-offs, and architectural decisions to cross-functional partners.

Why You’ll Enjoy This Role

• You’ll own and shape the front-end experience of a next-generation AI-powered SaaS product.

• You’ll operate in a true AI-first engineering culture, using modern tooling to dramatically increase productivity and impact.

• You’ll work closely with Product and Design, influencing how complex enterprise functionality is surfaced and used by real customers.

• You’ll help define scalable, long-term front-end architecture and raise the quality bar as the team and product grow.

• You’ll have real autonomy, responsibility, and visibility - your decisions will directly shape the product.

As an equal opportunity employer, we don’t tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind. Whether that’s based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state or local laws. The reasonably estimated yearly salary for this role is: $160,000—$230,000 USD.