Technical Lead - Frontend Architecture

Job Title : Technical Lead Frontend Engineering (Web)

Company : KukuFM

Experience : 5 to 8+ years

Role Type : Hands-on IC + Frontend Technical Leadership

About the Role :

We are seeking a Core Frontend Technical Lead to build and scale KukuFMs web experience for millions of users. This role is focused on frontend system design, UI architecture, performance engineering, and browser-level optimization.

You will lead frontend architecture decisions, write production-grade UI code, mentor engineers, and ensure best-in-class user experience across devices and browsers.

What You Will Do :

Frontend Architecture & UI Systems :

- Own and evolve the frontend architecture of the KukuFM web platform.

- Design scalable, modular UI systems using React and Next.js.

- Drive architectural decisions around component design, state management, SSR/SSG, hydration, and code splitting.

- Ensure long-term maintainability and extensibility of the frontend codebase.

Performance & Rendering Excellence :

- Optimize rendering performance, bundle size, runtime efficiency, and memory usage.

- Improve Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID/INP, CLS) and Lighthouse scores.

- Implement best practices for lazy loading, prefetching, caching, and CDN usage.

- Debug browser-level issues related to rendering, repaint/reflow, and JS execution.

Media-Rich Frontend Experiences :

- Build and optimize audio/video UI experiences from a frontend perspective.

- Work with HTML5 Media APIs and playback controls to deliver smooth user interactions.

Implement UI features like :

- Playback speed control

- Resume & bookmarks

- Seek optimization

- Background playback UX

- Ensure consistent UI behavior across Chrome, Safari, Firefox, mobile web, and desktop.

Frontend Quality & Engineering Standards :

- Write clean, reusable, and well-tested frontend code using JavaScript / TypeScript.

Define frontend engineering standards for :

- Component structure

- Styling and theming

- Accessibility (WCAG)

- Error handling and edge cases

- Conduct deep code reviews with a focus on performance, readability, and correctness.

Technical Leadership & Mentorship :

- Mentor frontend engineers and raise overall code quality.

- Guide junior and mid-level developers on frontend best practices.

- Drive frontend technical roadmaps aligned with product goals.

- Be the go-to expert for complex UI, browser, and performance challenges.

Cross-Functional Collaboration :

- Work closely with Product and Design to translate UX into performant UI implementations.

- Partner with backend teams to define clean frontend-backend contracts (APIs).

- Collaborate with analytics teams to implement accurate client-side tracking.

Required Skills :

Core Frontend :

- 5+ years of hands-on frontend engineering experience.

- Deep expertise in JavaScript (ES6+), HTML5, CSS3.

- Strong experience with React.js and Next.js.

- Excellent understanding of browser internals, rendering pipelines, event loop, and memory management.

Performance & UI Engineering :

- Proven experience improving web performance at scale.

- Strong grasp of layout, painting, compositing, and JS execution costs.

- Experience building highly interactive, animation-heavy UI.

Tooling & Testing :

- Experience with TypeScript, Webpack/Vite, Babel.

- Frontend testing using Jest, React Testing Library, Cypress.

- Familiarity with CI pipelines for frontend builds and checks.

Good to Have :

- Experience with PWAs, service workers, and offline-first UI.

- Experience with frontend observability tools (Sentry, Lighthouse).

- Strong UI/UX sensibility and attention to micro-interactions.

- Exposure to design systems and component libraries.