Fullstack Frontend Lead – High-Performance News Platform

We operate a high-traffic, mobile-first news platform where "breaking news" means instant load spikes, real-time content delivery, and zero tolerance for latency. We are looking for a Fullstack Frontend Lead who treats the browser as a high-performance runtime environment and can lead engineering decisions across architecture, performance, developer experience, and frontend scalability.

This is not a “feature factory” role. You will lead the frontend platform strategy for a real-time news ecosystem that must remain fast, resilient, SEO-dominant, and operational under extreme traffic surges.

What You’ll Do

Lead Frontend Architecture

Own and evolve a large-scale frontend platform using Next.js App Router and TypeScript. Define architectural patterns around React Server Components (RSC), streaming, Suspense boundaries, routing strategies, and rendering tradeoffs across SSR, ISR, and client interactivity.

Drive Performance Engineering

Establish performance budgets and lead initiatives focused on Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP), mobile responsiveness, hydration efficiency, memory management, and runtime stability. Ensure the platform remains highly interactive during 10k+ concurrent user spikes and breaking-news surges.

Build Scalable Data & State Systems

Design robust frontend data orchestration strategies using TanStack Query or SWR. Lead patterns for live news feeds, optimistic updates, partial hydration, background synchronization, and graceful asynchronous state transitions.

Define Edge & Caching Strategy

Lead frontend caching and delivery architecture across edge infrastructure such as Vercel, Cloudflare, or Amazon Web Services CloudFront. Optimize ISR strategies, CDN cache hit ratios, middleware caching, stale-while-revalidate flows, and geo-aware request handling.

Own Frontend Platform & DX

Establish scalable engineering standards, frontend folder architecture, linting rules, CI/CD quality gates, component governance, and developer workflows. Mentor engineers through code reviews, architecture discussions, debugging sessions, and performance deep dives.

Lead Fullstack Frontend Integration

Architect and maintain “Frontend-for-Backend” layers using Next.js API Routes, Server Actions, and edge middleware. Collaborate closely with backend, DevOps, product, and editorial teams to build resilient integrations for real-time publishing workflows.

Design Component Systems

Lead the development of a modular, accessible (a11y), themeable design system using Tailwind CSS. Ensure consistency across mobile, tablet, desktop, and embedded surfaces while maintaining excellent runtime performance.

Establish Observability & Reliability

Instrument the frontend stack using RUM (Real User Monitoring), Sentry, logging, tracing, and frontend profiling tools. Build systems that proactively detect regressions, memory leaks, hydration issues, and production bottlenecks before users experience them.

Collaborate Across the Organization

Partner with editorial, SEO, product, analytics, and infrastructure teams to align frontend architecture with business goals, monetization strategies, discoverability, and engagement metrics.

You’re a Fit If You

Are a Deep Next.js Practitioner

You have extensive production experience with the App Router, React Server Components, streaming SSR, Suspense boundaries, and advanced rendering optimization strategies.

Think Like a Performance Engineer

You understand the browser rendering pipeline deeply and know how to eliminate render-blocking resources, reduce JavaScript execution cost, optimize hydration, and improve “First Meaningful Paint” on low-bandwidth mobile networks.

Can Lead Through Systems Thinking

You make architectural decisions with scalability, maintainability, reliability, observability, and developer productivity in mind—not just feature delivery.

Are Data & API Fluent

You are comfortable working with complex JSON payloads, schema validation using Zod, API orchestration, streaming data flows, and asynchronous UI coordination.

Care About Engineering Excellence

You proactively identify performance regressions, infrastructure bottlenecks, memory leaks, accessibility gaps, and frontend operational risks before they become production issues.

Prioritize Security & Reliability

You understand frontend security best practices including CSP headers, XSS prevention, secure cookie handling, token management, and edge security patterns.

Mentor & Elevate Teams

You enjoy guiding engineers, conducting architecture reviews, setting technical direction, and raising the engineering bar across the organization.

Bonus Points

• Experience with Web Workers and offloading heavy computations from the main thread.
• Experience building or scaling high-traffic media, publishing, or real-time platforms.
• Knowledge of Edge Functions for geo-personalization, experimentation, and A/B testing.
• Familiarity with Headless CMS architectures such as WordPress, Contentful, or Strapi.
• Experience using load-testing tools like k6 or Artillery to simulate frontend traffic spikes.
• Experience building internal frontend platforms, reusable SDKs, or multi-brand component systems.
• Familiarity with ad-tech, analytics instrumentation, SEO rendering strategies, or real-time personalization systems.

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What Success Looks Like

• The platform remains fast and stable during major traffic spikes.
• Core Web Vitals consistently meet performance targets on mobile devices.
• Frontend deployments are reliable, observable, and low-risk.
• Engineering velocity improves through better architecture and tooling.
• The frontend platform scales cleanly as product complexity and traffic grow.
• Teams trust the frontend infrastructure because it is predictable, resilient, and measurable.