Senior Frontend Engineer

The Opportunity ->

This is a performance-focused frontend engineering role with real architectural influence. Solvace’s platform serves manufacturing clients globally, and the company is investing heavily in frontend performance as a strategic priority. The platform is undergoing a significant modernisation programme — the current Angular application requires upgrading to the latest version and modern architectural patterns, with potential future migration paths including React under evaluation. The priority is a high-performance, well-architected Angular frontend today, with the flexibility to evolve as the platform strategy matures.

The engineering team is simultaneously modernising the backend (containerising .NET 8 for Kubernetes, migrating to PostgreSQL), and the AI team is building a copilot platform with multiple production agents. This role collaborates with both teams — particularly on API design and caching strategy — but the core focus is building high-performance frontend experiences, not maintaining legacy application code.

There are greenfield modules being built from scratch (Digital Obeya dashboard, CIL, Centreline) where the frontend can be designed for performance from the ground up. This role carries significant architectural ownership — including knowing when to build custom components versus adapting and extending the base components available in the framework.

Location: Fully remote, UK based. You'll interact with team members in the UK, Portugal, Spain, Brasil and US.

Core Technical Requirements ->

• TypeScript — non-negotiable. Deep proficiency required, including advanced type system features, generics, strict mode, and type-safe API contract patterns
• Angular (deep) — the production platform runs Angular 18. Must be proficient in Angular’s component model, dependency injection, RxJS, route resolvers, lazy loading, change detection strategies, and standalone components. Experience upgrading Angular applications to the latest architecture patterns (signals, control flow, deferrable views) is essential
• Component design judgement — must demonstrate strong instincts for when to build custom components versus adapting and extending base components from the framework or component library. Over-engineering bespoke components where framework defaults suffice wastes time; blindly using defaults where custom solutions are needed creates technical debt. The right candidate understands this trade-off deeply
• Modern CSS and component frameworks — Tailwind CSS (already in the stack) and shadcn/ui or similar headless component libraries. Must understand utility-first CSS, design token systems, and component composition patterns
• Performance obsession — this is the defining trait. Must have deep awareness of the patterns that drive up latency and costs:
• Bundle analysis and tree-shaking
• Code splitting and lazy loading (route-level and component-level)
• Lighthouse proficiency (Core Web Vitals: LCP, FID/INP, CLS)
• Main thread optimisation
• Network waterfall analysis and API call minimisation
• Browser caching strategies (service workers, HTTP cache headers, CDN configuration)
• Virtual scrolling and rendering optimisation for data-heavy dashboards
• API collaboration — must work closely with backend teams to minimise API calls, design efficient data contracts, ensure caching is optimised at every layer (browser, CDN, API gateway, application), and eliminate N+1 query patterns
• Linux / CLI proficiency — must be comfortable with Linux environments, command-line tooling, and containerised development workflows

AI-Assisted Development Methodology ->

Solvace is transitioning towards AI-assisted development as a core engineering practice. For frontend engineers:

• Hands-on experience with AI coding tools — Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar. Engineers who use these tools professionally to accelerate component development, write tests, and refactor code are strongly preferred
• Spec-driven development — ability to write clear component specifications and design documents that drive both human and AI-assisted implementation, with strong evaluation criteria and comprehensive test coverage
• Portfolio evidence — professional projects or side projects built with AI-assisted development tools are a must. Contributions to or experimentation with emerging projects like OpenClaw are a strong signal
• Testing and evaluation rigour — experience building robust frontend test suites (unit, integration, E2E, visual regression) and automated performance budgets that catch regressions before deployment

Nice-to-Have ->

• Go or Rust — valued as evidence of strong systems thinking and backend empathy, which translates directly into better API design collaboration
• d3.js / ECharts — the platform uses both for data visualisation; dashboard modules are data-heavy with complex charting requirements
• Playwright — E2E test specs exist for key modules. Experience integrating Playwright into deployment pipelines with automated smoke tests is a plus
• Datadog RUM — the platform uses Datadog Real User Monitoring. Experience interpreting RUM data (session replay, per-country latency) to drive optimisation priorities is valuable
• React ecosystem — experience with React, Next.js (SSR, RSC, app router), and Vite (build tooling, HMR, tree-shaking) is valued. Potential migration paths including React are under evaluation, and candidates with experience across both Angular and React are well-positioned to contribute to that decision
• Micro-frontend architecture — experience with micro-frontend patterns (module federation, single-spa, or similar) for incremental framework migration is a strong plus
• WebSocket / SignalR — the AI copilot uses SignalR for real-time transcription streaming; the frontend integrates with this
• Internationalisation — the platform uses Transloco for i18n across 32 languages
• Accessibility (a11y) — WCAG compliance experience is valued

Your Mission (First 6 Months) ->

1. Drive the frontend performance programme — lead a systematic effort to optimise page load times, reduce bundle sizes, implement lazy loading, and eliminate unnecessary API calls triggered by navigation. Establish performance budgets and integrate Lighthouse scoring into the CI/CD pipeline
2. Optimise JavaScript delivery — audit dependencies, implement tree-shaking, introduce dynamic imports for heavy libraries (charting, Gantt, Excel generation), and establish bundle size budgets with CI enforcement
3. Build greenfield modules for performance — new modules (Digital Obeya dashboard, CIL, Centreline) are being built from scratch. Design these for performance from the ground up: virtual scrolling for widget grids, incremental data loading, WebSocket-driven updates, and aggressive client-side caching
4. Implement end-to-end caching strategy — work with backend teams to implement HTTP cache headers on stable API responses, CDN-level API caching for read-heavy endpoints, client-side query caching (TanStack Query patterns), and stale-while-revalidate strategies for dashboard data
5. Establish frontend performance infrastructure — instrument the frontend with comprehensive APM (Datadog RUM), establish performance budgets in CI (Lighthouse scores, bundle size limits, Core Web Vitals thresholds), and build dashboards for real-time visibility into frontend performance
6. Modernise the Angular architecture — upgrade the existing Angular codebase to the latest patterns (standalone components, signals, control flow, deferrable views). Evaluate and document potential future migration paths — including React — with trade-off analysis, effort estimates, and recommendations. The goal is a modern, performant Angular foundation today with a clear-eyed view of where the frontend architecture should evolve

Research vs. AppliedEntirely applied / production-focused. This is a hands-on frontend engineering role. The person needs to be comfortable profiling production performance, reading APM traces, and shipping measurable improvements. They’re measured on load time reductions and user experience metrics, not architectural elegance.

Why Join?

• Measurable, high-impact performance work — clear performance targets with comprehensive monitoring (Datadog RUM, Lighthouse). Every improvement is directly measurable and visible to the business
• Architecture influence — this person will modernise the Angular architecture and evaluate future migration paths including React, shaping the long-term frontend strategy for the platform
• Greenfield modules — new modules are being built from scratch. The frontend engineer gets to design these for performance from day one
• AI copilot frontend — the KAI copilot uses SignalR for real-time transcription and streaming agent responses. Building the frontend for an AI copilot in manufacturing is genuinely novel
• Manufacturing domain — dashboards, shop floor kiosks, and mobile-first inspection flows are unlike typical SaaS frontend work. Rich data visualisation challenges with real operational stakes
• High visibility — frontend performance is a strategic priority. Improvements are noticed at the highest level of the organisation