Torchora
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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Tech Lead Front End

💰 $150,000 - $220,000

EngineeringSoftware DevelopmentFront EndLeadership

🎯 Role Definition

Are you a seasoned front-end developer with a passion for leadership and a vision for technical excellence? This role requires a dynamic and influential Tech Lead, Front End to join our growing team. In this pivotal role, you will be the technical cornerstone for our front-end engineering squad, responsible for architecting scalable solutions, mentoring a talented team of developers, and championing best practices. You will work hand-in-hand with product, design, and backend teams to build beautiful, performant, and reliable web applications that delight our users. This is a unique opportunity to shape the future of our product's user experience and foster a world-class engineering culture.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Front End Engineer
  • Principal Front End Developer
  • Software Architect (Front End Focus)

Advancement To:

  • Engineering Manager
  • Staff/Principal Engineer
  • Solutions Architect
  • Director of Engineering

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Manager, Technical
  • DevOps Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead, mentor, and empower a team of front-end engineers, fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment that promotes technical growth and innovation.
  • Define and drive the long-term technical vision and architectural roadmap for our front-end applications, ensuring they are scalable, maintainable, and secure.
  • Act as the primary technical decision-maker for the front-end domain, guiding the team through complex architectural challenges and technology choices.
  • Conduct thorough and constructive code reviews to ensure high standards of code quality, performance, and adherence to established best practices.
  • Remain hands-on with code, contributing to the development of critical features and complex components to set a high bar for the team and stay current with the codebase.
  • Collaborate closely with Product Managers and UX/UI Designers to translate product requirements and design mockups into well-architected, tangible technical solutions.
  • Champion and implement robust testing strategies, including unit, integration, and end-to-end testing, to ensure application reliability and stability.
  • Drive performance optimization initiatives across our web platforms, focusing on Core Web Vitals, load times, and overall user-perceived performance.
  • Establish and govern front-end development standards, tooling, and processes to streamline the development lifecycle and enhance team productivity.
  • Partner with backend and platform engineering teams to define and iterate on API contracts and ensure seamless integration between front-end and back-end services.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues, leading post-mortem discussions to identify root causes and implement preventative measures.
  • Own the technical health of the front-end codebase, proactively identifying and prioritizing technical debt remediation and refactoring efforts.
  • Communicate technical strategy, project status, and risks effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, including senior leadership.
  • Spearhead the evaluation and adoption of new frameworks, libraries, and tools that can enhance our front-end stack and developer experience.
  • Guide the team in breaking down large, ambiguous projects into small, manageable, and iterative deliverables within an Agile/Scrum framework.

Secondary Functions

  • Assist in the recruitment, interviewing, and onboarding of new front-end engineering talent to grow our high-performing team.
  • Represent the front-end team in cross-functional architectural guilds and technical steering committees to ensure alignment across the organization.
  • Develop and maintain comprehensive technical documentation for architectural patterns, development standards, and complex systems.
  • Create and deliver technical presentations and training sessions to share knowledge and best practices across the engineering department.
  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis related to user behavior and application performance.
  • Contribute to the organization's overall technology strategy and roadmap.
  • Participate in sprint planning, retrospectives, and other agile ceremonies to ensure the team's workflow is efficient and effective.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expert-level proficiency in JavaScript (ES6+/ES.Next) and TypeScript.
  • Deep, hands-on experience with modern front-end frameworks, particularly React, and familiarity with others like Vue.js or Angular.
  • Strong command of modern state management libraries such as Redux, Zustand, or React Query.
  • Mastery of semantic HTML5, CSS3, and CSS-in-JS or pre-processors like SASS/LESS.
  • Proven experience architecting and building large-scale, component-based front-end applications.
  • Proficiency with modern front-end build tooling, including Webpack, Vite, and Babel.
  • Extensive experience with testing frameworks like Jest, Vitest, Cypress, and Playwright.
  • Solid understanding of web performance optimization techniques, browser rendering, and Core Web Vitals.
  • Experience consuming and designing RESTful APIs and/or GraphQL.
  • Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions) and deploying to cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure).
  • Knowledge of web accessibility (WCAG) standards and best practices.

Soft Skills

  • Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Ability to guide, inspire, and grow engineers.
  • Exceptional Communication: Can articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
  • Strategic & Architectural Thinking: Sees the bigger picture and plans for the future.
  • Collaborative Spirit: Works effectively with cross-functional partners (Product, Design, QA).
  • Problem-Solving Acumen: Adept at diagnosing and resolving complex technical issues.
  • Product-Oriented Mindset: Understands and cares about the business impact of their work.
  • Empathy & Team Building: Fosters a positive, psychologically safe team culture.
  • Pragmatism & Prioritization: Balances technical excellence with business needs and deadlines.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's Degree in a technical field or equivalent demonstrable practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's Degree in a related field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 8+ years of professional experience in front-end software development, with at least 2-3 years in a technical leadership, mentorship, or senior-level capacity.

Preferred:

  • Demonstrated experience leading the architecture and delivery of complex, customer-facing web applications.
  • A portfolio or links to public code (e.g., GitHub) showcasing your work.
  • Experience working in and leading projects within an Agile/Scrum environment.
  • Proven track record of successfully mentoring junior and mid-level engineers.
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