Torchora
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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Front End Architect

💰 $150,000 - $250,000+

Software EngineeringWeb DevelopmentArchitectureTechnology Leadership

🎯 Role Definition

Are you a visionary technologist passionate about crafting exceptional user experiences at scale? This role requires a highly influential Front End Architect to be the cornerstone of our engineering organization. In this pivotal role, you will be responsible for defining the technical strategy, architecture, and standards for our entire front-end ecosystem. You will lead the charge in building resilient, performant, and scalable applications that delight our users and empower our business. This is a unique opportunity to mentor a talented team of engineers, drive innovation, and leave a lasting impact on our technology landscape. If you thrive on solving complex challenges and translating business vision into brilliant technical reality, we want to hear from you.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Principal Front End Engineer
  • Senior Staff Software Engineer (Front End)
  • Lead UI/UX Engineer

Advancement To:

  • Principal Architect / Distinguished Engineer
  • Director of Engineering
  • Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Lateral Moves:

  • Solutions Architect
  • Full Stack Architect
  • Senior Product Manager, Technical

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Define and own the long-term technical vision, strategy, and roadmap for the company's front-end architecture, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
  • Architect and design large-scale, enterprise-grade front-end applications, focusing on performance, scalability, security, and maintainability.
  • Lead the evaluation, selection, and implementation of front-end frameworks, libraries, and technologies (e.g., React, Angular, Vue.js, Svelte, Next.js).
  • Establish and enforce best practices and coding standards for front-end development, including code quality, testing strategies, and accessibility (WCAG).
  • Spearhead the design, development, and governance of a comprehensive, reusable component library and design system to ensure UI consistency and development efficiency.
  • Mentor, coach, and provide technical leadership to senior and principal-level engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.
  • Collaborate closely with Product Managers, UX/UI Designers, Backend Architects, and DevOps to translate complex requirements into robust and elegant technical solutions.
  • Drive proof-of-concept (PoC) initiatives to explore, validate, and de-risk the adoption of new technologies, patterns, and architectural paradigms like micro-frontends.
  • Act as the ultimate authority and decision-maker on front-end technical matters, resolving disputes and guiding teams through complex trade-offs.
  • Create and maintain high-level technical documentation, including architectural diagrams, decision records, and development standards.
  • Lead technical design review sessions and code reviews for significant features to ensure they align with the established architectural vision.
  • Champion and implement a comprehensive performance optimization strategy, focusing on Core Web Vitals, reducing load times, and ensuring smooth user interactions.
  • Develop and champion a robust CI/CD pipeline strategy for front-end assets, enabling rapid, reliable, and automated deployments.
  • Define and govern API contracts in collaboration with backend teams, ensuring efficient and stable communication between the client and server.
  • Serve as the primary technical point of contact and subject matter expert for all front-end related projects, challenges, and escalations.
  • Pioneer the adoption of modern architectural patterns such as Server-Side Rendering (SSR), Static Site Generation (SSG), and Edge Computing to enhance application performance and SEO.
  • Actively manage and strategize the reduction of technical debt across the front-end codebase.
  • Stay at the forefront of industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices, bringing innovative ideas to the engineering organization.
  • Guide teams in writing clean, modular, and highly testable code that promotes long-term maintainability and extensibility.
  • Lead root cause analysis for critical production incidents, implementing preventative measures to improve system reliability.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis related to front-end performance and user behavior.
  • Contribute to the organization's broader technology strategy and roadmap beyond the front-end domain.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs and user feedback into actionable engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies, providing high-level architectural guidance and effort estimation.
  • Collaborate with security teams to conduct vulnerability assessments and ensure front-end applications adhere to the latest security standards.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expert-level proficiency in modern JavaScript (ESNext) and TypeScript.
  • Deep architectural expertise with major front-end frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue.js and their ecosystems.
  • Extensive experience designing and implementing scalable architectural patterns, including micro-frontends, single-page applications (SPAs), and server-side rendering (SSR).
  • Strong command of web performance optimization techniques, Core Web Vitals, browser rendering pipeline, and profiling tools.
  • Mastery of front-end build tools and module bundlers such as Webpack, Vite, or Rollup.
  • In-depth experience with advanced state management patterns and libraries (e.g., Redux Toolkit, Zustand, MobX, NgRx).
  • Profound knowledge of web security best practices and protocols (CSP, CORS, XSS, CSRF mitigation).
  • Expertise with automated testing strategies and frameworks, including unit, integration, and end-to-end testing (e.g., Jest, Vitest, Cypress, Playwright).
  • Strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and implementing CI/CD pipelines for front-end applications (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI).
  • Proven experience designing and consuming both RESTful and GraphQL APIs.
  • Deep commitment to and experience with implementing web accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA/AAA).

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional technical leadership, influence, and mentorship capabilities.
  • Strategic thinking with the ability to craft and articulate a compelling long-term vision.
  • Superb communication skills, capable of explaining complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Advanced problem-solving, critical thinking, and analytical abilities.
  • A highly collaborative and team-oriented mindset, with a proven ability to build consensus.
  • Strong decision-making skills, especially when navigating ambiguity and technical trade-offs.
  • A passion for innovation and continuous improvement.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s Degree in a relevant field or equivalent, substantial, and demonstrated practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s Degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 10-15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years in a senior, lead, or principal-level front-end role.

Preferred:

  • Proven experience architecting, building, and launching complex, high-traffic, customer-facing applications from the ground up.
  • A track record of leading and mentoring large or multiple engineering teams.
  • Experience successfully leading a large-scale technology migration or platform re-architecture.
  • Contributions to open-source projects or a strong public presence (tech talks, blog posts) are highly regarded.
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