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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Lead Front End Developer

💰 $120,000 - $160,000

TechnologyFront‑EndLeadership

🎯 Role Definition

As a Lead Front End Developer, you will take ownership of the user‑facing architecture and delivery of client‑side applications, ensuring high standards of performance, scalability, accessibility and maintainability. You will lead a front‑end team, provide technical guidance, collaborate with product, design and backend teams, define and enforce best practices, and drive forward a modern front‑end roadmap.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Front End Developer
  • Front End Engineer with significant client‑side architecture experience
  • UI/UX Engineer stepping into technical leadership

Advancement To:

  • Technical Architect (Front End)
  • Engineering Manager (Front End)
  • Director of Front End Development / UI Platform

Lateral Moves:

  • Lead Full‑Stack Developer
  • Lead UI/UX Engineering
  • Front End Platform or Design System Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Here are typical, recruiter‑style responsibilities you will own:

  1. Lead the design, development and maintenance of reusable front‑end architectures and component libraries to support scalability and consistency across products.
  2. Translate business and product requirements into high‑quality front‑end solutions in collaboration with UX/UI design, product management and backend teams.
  3. Mentor and guide front‑end engineers through code reviews, pair programming, best practices, technical spikes and architecture decisions.
  4. Define and enforce front‑end best practices around performance optimisation, accessibility (WCAG), responsiveness and cross‑browser/device compatibility.
  5. Build modular layouts, reusable code and libraries for future use, minimising technical debt while growing the code‑base.
  6. Collaborate with backend architects and engineers to design and integrate front‑end solutions that align with API, middleware and service‑oriented architecture strategies.
  7. Estimate development effort, track progress, identify and mitigate technical risks, ensure on‑time delivery of front‑end features and releases.
  8. Monitor production front‑end code and user‑facing behaviour; identify bottlenecks, improve runtime performance, monitor page load times, lazy‑load modules, bundle optimisation.
  9. Lead CI/CD efforts for front‑end pipelines, build tooling, automated tests, version control, deployments and code quality gates.
  10. Oversee the migration of legacy front‑end code‑bases to modern frameworks, architectures (e.g., micro‑front ends, componentisation, SSR/PWA) and manage change accordingly.
  11. Lead team backlog prioritisation, sprint planning and agile ceremonies for the front‑end lifecycle from concept to production.
  12. Collaborate across global or multi‑time‑zone teams, working with product, design, QA, operations and security to ensure cohesive delivery and shared understanding.
  13. Participate in hiring, onboarding and growth of front‑end talent; define career‑paths, conduct performance reviews and foster a culture of continuous learning.
  14. Maintain deep awareness of emerging front‑end technologies, frameworks and ecosystem trends; lead evaluation of new tools and frameworks and drive adoption where fit.
  15. Own documentation of front‑end architecture, design patterns, component usage, style guides and technical decisions to support team knowledge and consistency.
  16. Define and enforce accessibility (ARIA roles, keyboard navigation), responsive design (Flexbox/Grid, media queries) and ensure inclusive UX for diverse users.
  17. Ensure the technical feasibility of UI/UX design mock‑ups and prototypes; turn designs into high‑quality front‑end implementations.
  18. Work on front‑end security considerations such as XSS protection, secure data handling in the browser, sanitisation, secure authentication flows and performance monitoring.
  19. Measure front‑end code health and maintainability: review code for readability, testability, scalability, conduct regular code reviews and ensure adherence to coding standards.
  20. Manage stakeholder communication for front‑end deliverables: provide regular status updates, highlight risks, propose mitigation strategies and align expectations between business, design and engineering.
  21. Champion front‑end development as part of the wider technology strategy, contribute to the data strategy, roadmap, and vendor or tool selection decisions.
  22. Support ad‑hoc data requests or exploratory front‑end metrics analysis (e.g., user interface analytics, performance logs) and collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering action.
  23. Continuously improve the front‑end development process: refine the build system, automate manual tasks, enhance component testing, reduce time to market and improve code quality.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad‑hoc data requests and exploratory front‑end performance/analytics investigations.
  • Contribute to the organisation’s front‑end strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate UI needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the front‑end engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expert proficiency in JavaScript (ES6+), TypeScript and modern front‑end frameworks (e.g., React, Angular, Vue).
  • Deep understanding of HTML5, CSS3, Sass/LESS, responsive design, CSS Grid/Flexbox, cross‑browser compatibility.
  • Experience designing and building Single Page Applications (SPAs), Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), component‑based architecture, state management (Redux, Context, Vuex).
  • Proficiency in front‑end build tooling and bundle optimisation (Webpack, Vite, Babel, Rollup) and performance tuning (lazy loading, code splitting).
  • Strong grasp of version control (Git), branching strategies, code review workflows, CI/CD pipelines for front‑end.
  • Experience integrating front‑end with RESTful APIs, GraphQL, or micro‑frontend/micro‑service architectures.
  • Working knowledge of front‑end testing strategies: unit testing, end‑to‑end testing, TDD, accessibility testing.
  • Familiarity with performance and monitoring tools for front‑end (e.g., datadog, octoperf, analysis of runtime metrics).
  • Experience with front‑end security best practices (browser security, secure authentication flows, XSS mitigation).
  • Ability to lead front‑end architecture discussions, define design systems, reusable components, style guides and team standards.

Soft Skills

  • Strong leadership and mentoring ability: guiding a team of developers, fostering learning and growth, promoting best practices.
  • Excellent collaboration across cross‑functional teams (product, design, backend, QA) and multiple time‑zones.
  • Outstanding communication skills: able to articulate technical concepts to non‑technical stakeholders, manage expectations, report status and risks.
  • Strategic thinking: ability to translate business goals into front‑end solutions, evaluate new technologies and steer innovation.
  • Problem‑solving and analytical mindset: diagnosing performance or architecture bottlenecks, resolving technical debts, making trade‑offs.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning: staying current with emerging front‑end trends, frameworks and ecosystem changes.
  • Ownership and accountability: take responsibility for deliverables, front‑end quality, code reviews, production readiness.
  • Team‑oriented yet able to lead: balancing hands‑on development and team leadership, setting an example through coding and architecture.
  • Time‑management and prioritisation: handling multiple priorities, aligning backlog, ensuring on‑time releases and managing technical risk.
  • Empathy and coaching mindset: supporting team members, promoting knowledge sharing, creating inclusive and high‑performing environment.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Computer Science, Human‑Computer Interaction, or related discipline with strong front‑end focus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Web Development, Human‑Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Interaction Design & UX

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5+ years of professional front‑end development experience and 2+ years leading a front‑end or UI team.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years front‑end experience, 3‑5 years in a lead role, proven track record of shipping production‑grade applications, architecting front‑end systems, and mentoring teams.
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