Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer Junior-Mid Level Full-time or Contract Bengaluru / Remote You are a developer who finds the gap between a Figma frame and the live product almost offensive. Not because you are precious about design, but because you know that every misaligned pixel, sluggish LCP, or layout shift is a signal that the engineering was not finished. You do not separate "it works" from "it is fast and correct" because to you they are the same bar.

The Problem You Will Own: ZenteiQ is building AI companions that scientists, engineers, and domain experts will use daily, systems that reason, adapt, and return information under real cognitive load. The frontend is not a skin over an API; it is the interface between human thinking and AI output. Right now, the gap between what the product can do and what users experience when they open it is too wide. You will close that gap by owning the rendering layer, the component architecture, and the performance baseline so that every interaction feels instantaneous and every UI state is predictable.

The Environment ZenteiQ is a deep-tech startup founded by IISc Bangalore faculty and selected by the IndiaAI Mission (MeitY) to build India's Scientific Foundation Model. The team is small, the scope is large, and decisions are made fast, sometimes within a single call. You will work directly with the engineering and design leads; there is no PM layer between you and the product. You will be expected to use judgment, raise blockers early, and own outcomes without being chased.

Responsibilities:

• Architect and build the component library from the ground up, making decisions on composition patterns, theming, and API surface that the rest of the team will build on top of.
• Own the rendering strategy for every page: choose between SSR, SSG, ISR, and CSR with explicit reasoning tied to SEO, TTFB, and data freshness requirements, not defaults.
• Integrate the frontend with AI inference endpoints and scientific data APIs, and handle the async edge cases that make or break the experience (streaming responses, loading states, partial hydration).
• Drive Core Web Vitals from wherever they are to green LCP, CLS, FID using DevTools profiling, bundle analysis, and caching strategy, not guesswork.
• Translate Figma prototypes into pixel-correct, accessible UIs that hold up across viewport sizes and browsers without needing a separate QA pass.
• Write TypeScript that a new engineer can follow six months later: typed, modular, and opinionated, where opinion prevents bugs.

Requirements:

• You have shipped production Next.js applications and can explain, with a specific example, why you chose a particular rendering strategy and what you would change now.
• You understand the React rendering model well enough to debug a performance problem without reaching for a library first; you know when re-renders are the issue and why.
• You have integrated REST APIs with TanStack Query and dealt with real async complexity: race conditions, cache invalidation, optimistic updates, error boundaries.
• You write TypeScript that leverages the type system to prevent bugs, not TypeScript that appeases the compiler.
• You have read a Core Web Vitals report, identified the root cause of a regression, and fixed it, and you can walk through exactly what you changed and why.

Good to Have:

• Experience with HLS video streaming (hls.js ) or real-time data interfaces.
• Familiarity with form libraries (React Hook Form, Formik) and validation patterns at scale.
• Exposure to CI/CD workflows (GitHub Actions, Vercel pipelines) and automated testing with Jest and React Testing Library.
• A feel for WCAG accessibility, not just semantic HTML, but understanding what screen reader users actually experience.
• This is not a role for someone who needs a clear spec before starting.
• Technology Area Required Preferred Framework Next.js (App Router, SSR/SSG/ISR) Language TypeScript, JavaScript ES6+ UI Library Chakra UI (theming, responsive) State / Data TanStack Query Zustand, Redux Area Required Preferred APIs REST integration, async handling GraphQL Tooling Git, Figma handoff, DevTools Performance Jest, RTL, GitHub Actions Core Web Vitals, SEO Accessibility HLS video, Lighthouse CI Semantic HTML, ARIA basics.