Principal Frontend Engineer

Principal Frontend Engineer

Location: San Francisco, CA

Role Overview

Arena Club is seeking a Principal Frontend Engineer to set frontend direction across products—combining architectural vision with hands-on React/TypeScript execution. You’ll lead technical initiatives, mentor engineers, and help build scalable systems spanning design systems, performance strategy, and reliable interface delivery.

Responsibilities

• Drive architecture and implementation for Arena’s web applications using React and TypeScript
• Set technical direction for scalable frontend frameworks/systems across multiple products and teams
• Partner with Product, Design, and Backend to define elegant, performant user experiences
• Lead initiatives from concept to launch, balancing long-term architecture with near-term delivery
• Build and maintain design systems, shared components, and engineering standards
• Raise the engineering bar via mentoring, thoughtful code reviews, and best practices
• Champion performance, accessibility, and reliability as core web platform pillars
• Identify and resolve architectural bottlenecks to ensure maintainable code at scale

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent experience
• 8+ years frontend web development with deep expertise in React and TypeScript
• 3+ years leading or architecting frontend web projects/teams
• Strong understanding of modern web application architecture, including state management (Redux, MobX, or similar) and build tools (Webpack, Babel, Vite, etc.)
• Proven end-to-end experience delivering production-grade web applications
• Experience with automated testing, CI, and modern DevOps workflows
• Hands-on experience using AI coding tools (Claude or Cursor preferred) to ship code and automate workflows
• Ability to balance speed vs. quality with sound technical tradeoffs

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with cloud environments, API design, and performance monitoring tools