[Hiring] Principal Frontend Engineer @HavocAI

Role Description

HavocAI is seeking a Principal Frontend Engineer to help architect, build, and scale the real-time interfaces operators use to command autonomous systems across air, surface, and subsurface domains. This is a deeply technical individual contributor role for an engineer who has built and scaled high-performance, real-time geospatial applications in production.

• Work closely with the Head of Frontend and senior engineers to shape frontend architecture and technical direction.
• Remain hands-on with the most difficult engineering problems.
• No direct reports, but significant influence through architecture, technical leadership, mentorship, and quality of systems built.

What You’ll Do

• Frontend Architecture & Real-Time Systems
  • Architect and build frontend systems capable of handling high-frequency, real-time data at scale.
  • Establish production-ready patterns for data ingestion, transformation, state management, and rendering.
  • Design transport-to-render architectures that prevent high-frequency telemetry from overwhelming the UI.
  • Implement effective strategies for batching, throttling, caching, workers, and state isolation.
  • Design predictable behavior for intermittent or degraded connectivity, including reconnection, state reconciliation, and offline tolerance.
  • Identify architectural and performance risks early and drive solutions before they become production issues.
• Geospatial Engineering
  • Guide the architecture and evolution of HavocAI’s real-time geospatial interfaces.
  • Design scalable approaches to map layers, feature identity, interaction state, rendering, and lifecycle management.
  • Build performant experiences for large and continuously changing geospatial datasets.
  • Optimize rendering as tracked entities, telemetry rates, and visual complexity increase.
  • Contribute directly to complex geospatial capabilities and establish patterns other engineers can build upon.
• Performance & Scalability
  • Profile and optimize browser performance across rendering, memory, CPU, network, and GPU workloads.
  • Use measurement and profiling to guide architectural decisions rather than assumptions.
  • Design client-side architectures that isolate high-frequency ingestion and processing from user-facing rendering workloads.
  • Anticipate scaling challenges and sequence technical investments appropriately as the platform grows.
  • Improve frontend reliability and performance without creating unnecessary complexity or process.
• Technical Leadership
  • Partner with the Head of Frontend and senior engineers on architecture, technical strategy, and major scaling decisions.
  • Remain hands-on with implementation, particularly on the most complex or technically consequential parts of the frontend platform.
  • Set a high bar for code quality, architecture, testing, maintainability, and performance.
  • Lead design reviews and develop technical proposals that clearly communicate tradeoffs and recommended approaches.
  • Mentor senior engineers in real-time systems, geospatial engineering, performance, and frontend architecture.
  • Build alignment across teams through strong technical judgment and clear communication.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of frontend engineering experience, including significant experience operating at Staff, Principal, or equivalent technical scope.
• Deep production experience building and scaling high-volume, real-time applications.
• Expert-level experience with React and TypeScript, including a first-principles understanding of React’s rendering model and frontend performance.
• Deep experience building map-based geospatial applications using MapLibre, Mapbox GL, Deck.gl, or equivalent technologies.
• Demonstrated experience optimizing large and dynamic geospatial feature sets.
• Hands-on experience scaling a real-time application through significant growth in tracked entities, update frequency, or data volume.
• Experience with multiple real-time communication technologies such as WebSockets, MQTT, gRPC-web, SSE, or similar protocols.
• Deep browser performance expertise across rendering, memory, CPU, networking, and GPU bottlenecks.
• Experience designing client-side data architectures using workers, batching, caching, state boundaries, and other techniques for isolating high-frequency workloads.
• Experience designing applications for degraded or intermittent connectivity, including reconnection and state reconciliation.
• Strong software architecture and systems-design fundamentals.
• Demonstrated ability to make sound technical tradeoffs and sequence architectural changes within a production system.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence technical direction without relying on formal authority.
• High ownership and comfort operating in a fast-moving, ambiguous engineering environment.

Nice to Have

• Experience taking an internal operational tool and evolving it into a scalable, multi-tenant product.
• Deep data visualization experience using D3, custom charting, or large-dataset visualization technologies.
• Experience with WebGL, Three.js, custom shaders, terrain visualization, or 3D geospatial applications.
• Experience with autonomous systems, robotics, command-and-control software, or real-time operational platforms.
• Experience in defense, aerospace, robotics, or other mission- or safety-critical environments.
• Familiarity with distributed systems, telemetry platforms, or backend architectures supporting high-frequency frontend applications.

What Success Looks Like

• Helped establish a frontend architecture capable of supporting significantly greater numbers of autonomous assets, telemetry streams, and real-time updates.
• Improved the performance, responsiveness, and reliability of HavocAI’s geospatial interfaces.
• Established scalable patterns for real-time data ingestion, state management, geospatial rendering, and degraded-connectivity scenarios.
• Identified and addressed architectural risks before they became constraints on product or platform growth.
• Raised the technical bar across the frontend organization through hands-on engineering, design reviews, architecture, and mentorship.

Benefits

• 100% Employer paid Health, Dental and Vision Insurance for you and your families.
• Life Insurance (Employer Paid).
• Ability to participate in the companies 401k program (Matching).
• Unlimited PTO policy with an enforced 2 week minimum.
• Equity Package.
• Work / Home Office Stipend.
• Global Entry.
• 16 Week Paid Parental Leave.
• Monthly Health and Wellness Stipend.