Lead Front End Engineer - React

Who We Are:

At VML, we are a beacon of innovation and growth in an ever-evolving world. Our heritage is built upon a century of combined expertise, where creativity meets technology, and diverse perspectives ignite inspiration. With the merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, we have forged a new path as a growth partner that is part creative agency, part consultancy, and part technology powerhouse. 

Our global family now encompasses over 30,000 employees across 150+ offices in 64 markets, each contributing to a culture that values connection, belonging, and the power of differences.  Our expertise spans the entire customer journey, offering deep insights in communications, commerce, consultancy, CRM, CX, data, production, and technology. We deliver end-to-end solutions that result in revolutionary work. 

We're seeking a talented Lead Front-End Developer to drive the end-to-end development of our cutting-edge platforms, ensuring architectural integrity, optimal user experiences, and technical excellence from ideation to delivery. In this pivotal role, you'll not only leverage your extensive hands-on experience with TypeScript, state management, and modern front-end architecture (including performance, accessibility, and SEO), but also mentor and guide an Agile front-end team, fostering their growth and managing project workflows.

What You’Ll Be Doing:

• Lead the end-to-end development of high-quality, production-ready React/NextJS applications, ensuring architectural integrity, code quality, and optimal user experiences.
• Drive technical excellence and ownership from ideation to delivery, including ongoing maintenance, scaling, and integration management. 
• Mentor and lead an Agile front-end development team, managing workload, contributing to sprint planning, and supporting recruitment. 
• Collaborate and communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including clients, design, and marketing, to gather requirements, present solutions, and escalate issues. 
• Stay current with evolving standards and technologies, continuously learning and applying new skills to enhance the platform

What We Want From You:

• Extensive hands-on experience with React development, with a solid understanding of its core concepts and state management approaches (e.g., Redux, Flux).
• Highly skilled in TypeScript, with a strong understanding of serverless and server-side development using Next.js.
• Proven experience leading an Agile front-end workstream, including contributing to daily stand-ups, sprint planning, and estimates.
• Strong commercial experience of unit testing/End to end testing/regression testing (we use Jest, React-testing-libraries and Playwright)
• Demonstrated knowledge of current trends and best practices in front-end architecture, including performance optimization, accessibility, SEO, and security.
• Commercial experience working on Single Page Application (SPA) solutions, ideally within e-commerce, and proficient in fluid responsive layouts across browsers/devices.
• Experience with modern development tooling, including GIT for Continuous Integration, linters/formatters (ESLint/Prettier), and component development with Storybook.
• Excellent communication skills, capable of interacting confidently with both technical teams and stakeholders, and experience mentoring junior developers.
• A great attitude, self-motivated, strong work ethic, with a high degree of ownership, and experience integrating with diverse 3rd party systems.

If you know some of this, even better: 

• Additional Commercial eCommerce platform experience – Magento/Hybris /Shopify
• Experience of working with other CMS platforms such as AEM, Sitecore or SFCC
• Experience in building rapid prototypes
• Any knowledge of Nodejs, Express, SQL, Lambda, AWS
• Experience creating site architecture diagrams, wireframes, process flows
• Experience of working on Java/Node/C#/PHP projects would be beneficial

What We Can Offer You:

Alongside the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting brands around the world, we’ll also prioritise your career development and help you grow your skills. We’ll empower you to make a difference, allow you to be yourself, and respect who you are.

We offer a great benefits package including a discretionary bonus scheme, training opportunities, competitive pension, medical insurance, life assurance, social events, opportunities to buy and sell holidays, family friendly policies, discounts with hundreds of retailers and much more.

Our personality and behaviours: We believe that we are what we do, not just what we say. Our shared values and behaviours show how to bring the VML Enterprise Solution's culture to life through the actions we all take every day:

• Connect Meaningfully
• Inspire Creatively
• Include Purposefully
• Approach Positively

Our brilliant, talented people are what makes VML Enterprise Solutions what we are. That’s why we look for people who go beyond and always push our thinking to be better than yesterday.

At Vml Enterprise Solutions

Our Enterprise Solutions division houses strategic consultants, creative and technical architects and skilled developers and operators that together help some of the world’s leading organisations to deliver outstanding digital experiences across all major routes to market worldwide: marketplaces, online retailers, D2C, B2B and social platforms. With over 4,200 experts in 55 operational centres across 34 countries, our capabilities span the entire buying journey from customer acquisition, through engagement, to conversion and loyalty, driving multi-channel growth for world-leading brands.

We work with some of the most exciting brands such as The Coca-Cola Company, EY, Bosch, Unilever, Ford, DFS, Mercedes-Benz, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Sainsbury’s, Selfridges, Shell and Tiffany & Co. We’ve built over 500 platforms for brands and retailers and generate in excess of $29bn annually for our clients and work with over 50 strategic partners including Adobe, SAP, Salesforce, HCL, Shopify, Sitecore, BigCommerce, commerce tools and Acquia. Our reputation is based on our people, and we believe we have some of the best in the business.

As our business grows internationally, we’re looking for new people to join us on our journey to inspire and take a key role in shaping some of the best commerce solutions, services, and websites in the world. Working as a team, no problem is insurmountable; we share in our client’s successes and believe that anyone can show creative bravery no matter what their role is in the team.

WPP (VML Enterprise Solutions) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. 

VML is a WPP Agency. For more information, please visit our website, and follow VML on our social channels via Instagram, LinkedIn, and X. 

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