Torchora
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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for a Visual Engineer

💰 $120,000 - $180,000

Data VisualizationEngineeringFront-End DevelopmentData ScienceUI/UX

🎯 Role Definition

Are you a creative coder with a passion for data and design? We're searching for a talented Visual Engineer to join our forward-thinking data team. In this hybrid role, you will be the crucial link between raw data and actionable insight, responsible for designing and building the stunning, interactive data visualizations that power our business decisions. You are both an engineer and an artist, capable of writing elegant front-end code while applying a keen eye for UX and data storytelling. If you thrive on transforming complex information into clear, compelling, and beautiful user experiences, we want to hear from you.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Front-End Developer with a data-centric mindset
  • Data Analyst with strong programming and visualization skills
  • UI/UX Designer who codes and loves data
  • Business Intelligence (BI) Developer seeking more creative, custom development

Advancement To:

  • Senior or Lead Visual Engineer
  • Staff Data Visualization Engineer
  • Manager, Data Products & Analytics
  • Principal Creative Technologist

Lateral Moves:

  • Creative Technologist
  • Product Manager, Data Products
  • Senior Front-End Engineer (UI/Data Focus)
  • Data Scientist (with a specialization in communication)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, develop, and implement bespoke, interactive data visualizations and web-based dashboards using modern libraries like D3.js, Plotly, or Highcharts.
  • Translate complex datasets and abstract business concepts into clear, accurate, and compelling visual narratives for both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Collaborate closely with product managers, data scientists, and UX designers in a cross-functional team to conceptualize, prototype, and iterate on data-driven features and products.
  • Build and maintain robust, scalable, and performant front-end applications using frameworks such as React, Vue, or Angular to serve as the platform for our data visualizations.
  • Write clean, reusable, and well-documented code in JavaScript/TypeScript, HTML, and CSS, adhering to team-wide best practices and coding standards.
  • Develop and optimize data processing jobs using SQL and Python (e.g., Pandas) to transform raw data into a format suitable for high-performance visualization.
  • Integrate visualizations with various data sources, including REST APIs, GraphQL endpoints, and direct connections to relational or NoSQL databases.
  • Champion UI/UX best practices to ensure that all data products are not only visually appealing but also intuitive, accessible (WCAG), and highly user-friendly.
  • Conduct performance tuning and optimization to handle large volumes of data in the browser, ensuring a smooth and responsive user experience across devices.
  • Create and maintain a component library of reusable visualization charts and elements to accelerate development and ensure design consistency across all data products.
  • Partner with business intelligence teams to prototype and productionalize innovative ways of presenting data that go beyond traditional charts and graphs.
  • Act as a subject matter expert on data visualization, providing guidance and mentorship to other engineers and analysts on visual encoding and data storytelling principles.
  • Stay abreast of the latest trends, technologies, and techniques in the data visualization and front-end development communities and advocate for their adoption where appropriate.
  • Develop interactive tools and simulators that allow users to explore "what-if" scenarios and understand the impact of different variables on business outcomes.
  • Ensure data integrity and accuracy by implementing rigorous testing and validation processes for both the data pipeline and the final visual output.
  • Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of visualization projects, from initial requirements gathering and wireframing to deployment and post-launch support.
  • Build compelling geospatial visualizations using tools like Mapbox or Leaflet.js to analyze and present location-based data patterns and insights.
  • Develop proof-of-concept projects to demonstrate the art of the possible with new visualization techniques and novel data sources to key stakeholders.
  • Refine and iterate on existing dashboards and visualizations based on user feedback and changing business requirements to continuously improve their value and impact.
  • Uphold and advocate for accessibility standards (WCAG) in all visual products, ensuring they are usable by people with a wide range of abilities.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to answer pressing business questions.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap by identifying new opportunities for visual analysis.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate ambiguous data needs into concrete engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning, code reviews, and other agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expert-Level Visualization Libraries: Deep, hands-on mastery of D3.js is essential for creating custom, high-impact visuals. Experience with other libraries like Plotly, Highcharts, or Chart.js is a plus.
  • Modern Front-End Development: Strong proficiency in JavaScript (ES6+)/TypeScript and at least one major framework like React, Vue, or Angular.
  • Web Fundamentals: A solid foundation in HTML5 and CSS3, including layouts (Flexbox/Grid) and pre-processors (Sass/LESS).
  • Data Querying & Manipulation: Proficiency in writing complex, efficient SQL queries. Experience with Python (Pandas) for data wrangling is highly desirable.
  • API Integration: Experience consuming data from RESTful APIs or GraphQL endpoints.
  • Version Control: Fluency with Git for collaborative development, branching, and code reviews.
  • Performance Optimization: Knowledge of techniques to render large datasets efficiently in a browser environment, including virtual scrolling and canvas/WebGL rendering.
  • Geospatial Tools: Experience with mapping libraries such as Mapbox or Leaflet.js is a strong advantage.

Soft Skills

  • Data Storytelling: The rare ability to look at a dataset and weave a compelling, easy-to-understand narrative that guides users to critical insights.
  • Creative Problem-Solving: A knack for thinking outside the box to find the best possible visual solution for a given problem, rather than just the most obvious one.
  • Collaboration & Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical and design concepts to a diverse group of stakeholders.
  • User Empathy & Design Sensibility: A strong eye for visual design, layout, typography, color theory, and a deep-seated empathy for the end-user's experience.
  • Attention to Detail: Meticulous approach to ensuring data accuracy, visual polish, and pixel-perfect implementation.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent, compelling practical experience. A strong portfolio showcasing relevant work is highly valued and can substitute for a formal degree.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Data Science
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Graphic Design or Information Design

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3-5+ years of professional experience in a role focused on front-end development, data visualization, or a related field.

Preferred:

  • A demonstrable portfolio of live, interactive data visualization projects that showcases both technical skill and design sensibility is strongly preferred. We want to see what you've built!
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