Staff Engineer - Web Applications

Kikoff; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 307,000 - 352,000; Full time

Job summary

Kikoff is seeking a Staff Frontend Engineer to raise the technical bar for our company-wide web product surfaces, spanning Kikoff, Grant, and future products. You will own the health, performance, and architecture of the frontend systems that serve our traffic at scale, setting direction and driving the roadmap with PMs, designers, data scientists, and engineers.

You will lead complex frontend initiatives, mentor engineers, and build shared UI components, ensuring fast, reliable, and measurable

Qualifications

• B.A./B.S./M.S. or strong CS fundamentals.
• 8+ years leading large consumer web apps across multiple teams.
• Production React experience.
• Hands-on frontend performance tuning, profiling, and optimization.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical strategy and architecture of Kikoff's frontend across current and future products.
• Lead performance tuning for high-traffic surfaces, focusing on Core Web Vitals, load times, and responsiveness.
• Drive frontend infrastructure work: tooling, CI/CD, observability, testing, and developer experience.
• Develop and evolve shared UI components and libraries; set frontend standards and reviews.
• Oversee cross-team projects to improve reliability, responsiveness, and polish.
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across the team.

Skills

Frontend leadership

React expert

Perf optimization

Data-driven

Mentoring

Collaborative

CS fundamentals

Technical influence

Education

CS degree or equivalent

Job description

Kikoff: The Fintech Powering Financial Security at Scale

Kikoff is a profitable, pre-IPO fintech company on a mission to empower everyone to achieve financial security. With record revenue growth in 2025 and a unicorn valuation, we've built a suite of products that help millions of people build credit, access liquidity, and save money.

We're scaling fast. Join us if you want to build something meaningful and help millions of people move forward financially.

Why Kikoff:

This is a consumer fintech startup, and you will be working with serial entrepreneurs who have built strong consumer brands and innovative products. We value extreme ownership, clear communication, a strong sense of craftsmanship, and the desire to create lasting work and work relationships. Yes, you can build an exciting business AND have real-life real-customer impact.

We're looking for a Staff Frontend Engineer to raise the technical bar for our company-wide web product surfaces, spanning Kikoff, Grant, and the products we build next, all in service of our mission to help millions of Americans.

This role goes beyond shipping features. You'll own the health, performance, and architecture of the frontend systems that serve our traffic at scale every day. You'll set technical direction, drive the frontend infrastructure roadmap, and treat performance as a product feature. Like everyone here, you'll work hand-in-hand with PMs, designers, data scientists, and other engineers to make sure what we ship is fast, reliable, and moves the needle in a meaningful, measurable way.

What you'll be doing:

• Own the technical strategy and architecture of Kikoff's company-wide web frontend across Kikoff, Grant, and future products, including component systems, state management, rendering strategy, routing, and build/deploy pipelines
• Own performance tuning for our highest-traffic surfaces: instrumentation, performance budgets, profiling, and optimization of Core Web Vitals, load times, and runtime responsiveness
• Lead frontend infrastructure work (tooling, CI/CD, observability, monitoring, testing, developer experience) so that every engineer can ship high quality, performant UI by default
• Build and evolve the shared UI components and libraries that product teams build on, and set frontend standards and code review practices across the org
• Lead complex, cross-team projects that measurably improve the reliability, responsiveness, and polish of our product
• Mentor engineers across the team and raise the technical bar

Requirements:

• B.A. / B.S. / M.S. or strong self-taught fundamentals in computer science
• 8+ years of industry experience, with a track record of leading large consumer facing web applications across multiple teams
• Experience building and operating consumer websites at scale, serving hundreds of thousands to millions of users, where performance and reliability directly affect the business
• Deep hands-on experience with frontend performance tuning: profiling, instrumentation, bundle optimization, rendering performance, caching/CDN strategy, and performance budgets
• Experience owning frontend infrastructure: build systems, design systems, observability, testing frameworks, and developer tooling that make other engineers more productive
• Hands-on and Deep experience with React in production
• A record of driving measurable improvements in quality and performance (load times, error rates, test coverage, reliability)
• Ability to influence technical direction and get alignment across teams without direct authority
• Ability to analyze data and distill information for business purposes
• Desire to form strong professional bonds with startup-forward coworkers

Base Range

$307,000 — $352,000 USD

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Kikoff Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to complying with all federal, state, and local laws providing equal employment opportunities and considers qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class.

Please reference the following for more information.