Aether is a VC-backed startup turns data into living, intelligent documents for global consumer brands - we've had amazing early traction with great client logos and we're now building out our foundational team!

Polished, intuitive interfaces are critical to that magic. We need a senior frontend leader who can push modern web tech to its limits, translate complex AI workflows into delightful user experiences, and collaborate across design and backend teams.

Open to candidates from Auckland, Sydney or Melbourne

You will report directly to the CTO and work hand in hand with our Lead Platform Engineer and Senior Full‑stack Engineer (Backend Focus).

• Lead the UI: own our design system, component library, and interactive document editor.
• Prototype and iterate: move from Figma wireframes or code‑first POCs to production‑ready features at startup speed.
• Harness AI: surface LLM‑powered insights, agents, and RAG pipelines in clear, responsive interfaces.
• Raise the bar: champion best practices in accessibility, performance, and testing across the team.

Responsibilities

• Architect rich frontends in Vue, React or another modern framework, applying data‑down events‑up principles and deep reactivity.
• Design robust components using TypeScript, storybook, and design tokens; maintain consistent theming and responsive layouts with Flexbox, CSS Grid, and CSS variables.
• Implement client data management with libraries like TanStack Query; optimise payloads, caching, and invalidation.
• Integrate APIs via OpenAPI/Swagger specs, generate type‑safe clients, and use WebSockets when real‑time is needed.
• Build and test with Vite, Vitest or Jest for units, component tests, and Playwright for end‑to‑end flows.
• Collaborate in Figma: refine mocks, export tokens, and manage Figma MCP; jump into lo‑fi wireframes when necessary.
• Optimise performance: measure Core Web Vitals, lazy‑load intelligently, guard against re‑render storms, and debug the event loop.
• Write a bit of Python on our backend when needed to keep things moving. We expect an expert to be able to switch between Python and Typescript, as they are semantically similar.
• Review and refactor code for clarity, low coupling, and high cohesion; diagram flows and publish concise tech notes.
• Talk to customers: run user tests and interviews to understand pain points and validate solutions.

Qualifications

Your existing toolkit

• Framework mastery: deep expertise in at least one of Vue, React, Angular, Svelte, or Solid, plus working knowledge of 2+ others.
• JavaScript / TypeScript: We need someone who knows these inside-out. Advanced generics, mapped and conditional types, higher‑order functions, the event loop, and async patterns.
• CSS wizardry: component‑scoped styles, responsive design, transitions, transforms, CSS variables, and modern layout techniques.
• Design systems: storybook, design tokens, component testing, versioning, and accessibility.
• Build toolchains: Vite or similar; experience with fullstack frameworks such as Next or Nuxt, as well as single page apps.
• Browser insight: DOM APIs, event loop, rendering pipeline, Web Workers, service workers.
• Testing: Vitest or Jest, React Testing Library or Vue Test Utils, Cypress or Playwright for e2e.
• API fluency: OpenAPI/Swagger spec‑first REST, WebSocket or SSE when appropriate.
• AI integration: calling OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, or open‑source models; embedding workflows, agentic patterns, and RAG. This is mainly a backend responsibility, but we'd like you to have used it yourself, so you have a strong instinct for its capabilities, as it's core to the product.
• Collaboration & Communication: strong writing, verbal communication, diagramming, whiteboard skills, RFCs. Etiquette and empathy for colleagues and customers.

Required qualifications and experience

• Education or equivalence: Bachelor’s degree in a related field or demonstrable real‑world mastery.
• Front‑end depth: minimum five years building and shipping complex SPAs or interactive web apps.
• Startup or scale‑up experience: proven success in fast‑moving, ambiguous settings.

Bonus points

• Leading or making significant contributions to a design system and component library.
• GitOps familiarity for deploying frontend artefacts. Managing private package artefacts in Github.
• Monorepos (yarn, pnpm, lerna, turborepo, nx).
• Design background or notable side projects showcasing design philosophy. We want someone who cares deeply about user experience.
• Usage of advanced web apis like WebGL, WebRTC, WASM. OpenAI Realtime API, tool calling.

If you thrive on crafting elegant UIs, mastering the latest web tech, and bringing AI capabilities to life for real users, we want to meet you!