Software Engineer - Front End

Tucows Inc.

13h•Remote

About The Position

In this role, your primary objective will be to architect, develop, and evolve user-facing web applications and reusable UI components with a strong focus on reliability, maintainability, and speed of delivery. You will work across both modern and legacy front-end codebases, improving existing applications and, when needed, migrating them fully to a more robust and modern architecture. You are expected to operate with systems thinking and strong critical reasoning, understanding end-to-end flows (auth, permissions, async workflows, API boundaries, and failure modes), and making sound technical decisions under real-world constraints. You will regularly reverse engineer existing applications to diagnose issues, align implementations with intended behavior, and de-risk migrations. You will work in a spec-driven engineering model, clarifying requirements, producing or refining feature-level specifications (acceptance criteria, edge cases, API contracts), and implementing them with a high bar for quality. You will also contribute to establishing repeatable patterns that allow teams to build features consistently across multiple applications. AI-assisted development is a core part of the workflow. You will use tools such as Claude (and similar LLM-based assistants) to accelerate implementation, refactoring, and discovery, while applying strong engineering discipline: validation of outputs, secure coding practices, thorough testing, and human review. Your goal is to move faster without trading off correctness or maintainability. Collaboration with design, product, and back-end teams is essential to ensure cohesive user experiences and smooth integration with back-end services. You’ll participate in architecture planning, code reviews, and delivery practices that ensure features are shipped safely and predictably, including deployments and post-release follow-up. If you’re deeply passionate about front-end development, enjoy working in complex systems, and thrive modernizing legacy applications at pace, we’re eager to hear from you. This is a remote role open to applicants in Canada.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent work experience.
Minimum of 5 years of experience delivering high-quality software solutions.
In-depth understanding of front-end architecture patterns, state management, component-based development, and modern JS frameworks like React.js and Vue.js.
Extensive experience in front-end development using HTML5 and CSS3 (Sass/SCSS).
Proficiency in implementing responsive and accessible designs, focusing on cross-browser compatibility.
Knowledge of performance optimization techniques, such as code splitting, lazy loading, and caching.
Experience with build and package management tools like Vite, Webpack, Babel, or npm.
Deep understanding of RESTful APIs and experience integrating front-end applications with back-end services.
Solid knowledge of software engineering principles, design patterns, and best practices.
Experience with version control using Git and agile development methodologies.
Comfortable with agile methodologies, JIRA, and other project workflow tools.
Build and ship features using a spec-driven approach, turning feature specs into implementation, tests, and measurable outcomes in production.
Strong reasoning, problem-solving, and debugging skills, with keen attention to detail.
Hands-on experience maintaining and modernizing legacy front-end applications, including safe refactoring, incremental migrations, and production releases.
Practical experience using LLM-based tools (e.g., Claude) in an engineering workflow, including validating outputs and maintaining quality through tests and review.
Hands-on experience using Figma or a similar tool.
Experience working remotely with a distributed team.
Good communication skills, both verbal and written.

Responsibilities

Develop and ship user-facing features using modern front-end technologies, ensuring they meet user needs and deliver measurable product value.
Own work end-to-end, from feature discovery and spec clarification to implementation, testing, release, and production follow-up.
Work across legacy and modern applications: Improve and stabilize existing codebases. Plan and execute incremental modernization and full migrations when required.
Collaborate with UX/UI designers to translate design concepts into fully functional and interactive components, aligned with our team’s UI standards and design system.
Determine and architect the structure of UI components and application patterns, focusing on efficiency, scalability, maintainability, and consistency across products.
Build reusable/composable components and patterns that positively impact multiple projects and new products company-wide.
Integrate front-end applications with back-end APIs in collaboration with back-end and full-stack developers, ensuring reliable data exchange and correct system behavior.
Perform root cause analysis of issues identified in the field (including cross FE/BE boundaries), prevent recurrences, and improve overall system stability.
Establish and maintain strong quality gates: Unit and integration testing. E2E testing (e.g., Playwright/Cypress). Visual regression testing where appropriate. CI checks and releases readiness.
Participate in code reviews, enforce best practices, and provide constructive feedback to raise quality and consistency across the team.
Use AI-assisted tools (e.g., Claude) as part of day-to-day development to accelerate delivery, while ensuring output verification, safe refactoring, and strong testing discipline.
Ship and operate front-end changes end-to-end: release, monitor, and follow up on production issues.
Deliver safely using feature flags, staged rollouts when applicable, and rollback-ready releases.
Build and maintain E2E smoke tests (Playwright) for critical paths, and add visual regression checks when UI fidelity is essential.
Use observability tooling (e.g., Sentry) to debug issues in the wild and reduce MTTR.
Apply secure FE practices (token handling, XSS/CSRF awareness, dependency hygiene), including when leveraging AI-assisted code.
Collaborate with engineering leads, product owners, project managers, and stakeholders to ensure a consistent and predictable product development process.
Stay up-to-date with current technologies and protocols for web-based applications, ensuring our product offerings’ continuous improvement and relevance.
Guide, support, and mentor engineers when needed, especially around design system usage, modular UI development, and spec-driven delivery.