Frontend Engineer (React, Remote, Europe)

This role is ideal for a mid-level Frontend Engineer who enjoys building polished, high-impact UIs for technically complex products. You’ll work closely with designers, backend engineers, and product managers to shape the user experience of an infrastructure orchestration platform used by DevOps teams, combining strong React skills with a clear product mindset and attention to performance, consistency, and usability.

Spacelift is a remote-first, Europe-based company that values autonomy, ownership, and pragmatism. The position suits someone proactive and comfortable owning features end to end, contributing to design systems, and improving frontend reliability over time. It’s a strong match for engineers who want visible product impact, steady growth, and collaboration in a highly technical but supportive environment.

1. What frontend technologies are you most comfortable with for building complex web applications?
   My core stack is React with TypeScript, supported by modern tooling like Vite/Webpack, ESLint/Prettier, and CSS-in-JS or utility-first styling (Tailwind / CSS Modules). I’m very comfortable working in component-driven architectures with Storybook and consuming GraphQL or REST APIs.

2. How do you approach building React UIs that balance complexity (infra-focused features) with simplicity for the user?
   I start by clarifying the user’s workflow and mental model, then map that to small, composable components. I push complex logic into hooks and state containers so components stay presentational and easy to reason about. I iterate with designers and product on prototypes, validating that we’re surfacing the right information while hiding unnecessary complexity behind sensible defaults and progressive disclosure.

3. Describe your experience with TypeScript in frontend applications. How do you use it to improve quality?
   I treat TypeScript as a core part of the design process: I define strict interfaces for props, API responses, and shared domain models, and enable strict mode to catch issues early. I use discriminated unions for complex UI states, leverage generics in reusable hooks, and rely on the type system to guard against inconsistent data flows as the app grows.

4. Have you worked with GraphQL in React apps? How do you structure data fetching and state management?
   Yes. I typically use a GraphQL client like Apollo or urql, colocating queries with components while keeping shared fragments and generated types in a dedicated layer. For local UI state, I prefer React context or lightweight state libraries when needed, and I lean on GraphQL cache normalization to avoid duplicating server data in client state.

5. How do you ensure performance and responsiveness in data-heavy UIs (e.g., dashboards or infra views)?
   I avoid unnecessary re-renders with memoization (React.memo/useMemo/useCallback), split large views into smaller components, and lazy-load heavy sections. For large lists or logs I use virtualization, and I’m careful about debouncing expensive operations. I regularly profile with browser dev tools and Lighthouse, monitoring key metrics like TTI, CLS, and interaction latency.

6. What is your approach to testing frontend code in a React/TypeScript project?
   I treat tests as part of the design: unit tests for critical logic and hooks (Jest/Vitest), component tests for core UI flows (React Testing Library), and a small but meaningful set of end-to-end tests (Playwright/Cypress) for high-value user journeys. I focus tests on behavior, not implementation details, and integrate them into CI so regressions are caught before deployment.

7. How have you worked with design systems and ensuring UI consistency across a growing product?
   I like to centralize primitives (buttons, inputs, layout components, typography, spacing tokens) in a shared design system, documented in Storybook. New screens are assembled from these building blocks rather than bespoke styles. I work closely with design to keep Figma and code in sync, and I treat any ad-hoc styling as a smell that usually indicates a missing reusable component.

8. Can you give an example of owning a frontend feature end-to-end in a cross-functional team?
   In a recent project I owned a new “activity overview” dashboard: I worked with product to refine scope, collaborated with backend to shape the API, defined the component architecture, implemented the UI in React/TypeScript, added tests, and rolled it out behind a feature flag. I also monitored usage and performance after release and iterated based on user feedback.

9. What interests you about working on a DevOps/infra platform like Spacelift from a frontend perspective?
   I enjoy building tools for technical users where a good UI actually unlocks productivity. Infra orchestration is inherently complex, and translating that into intuitive dashboards, workflows, and guardrails is a fun challenge. The idea of giving platform teams and developers a clearer, faster way to reason about their infrastructure is very motivating to me.

10. How do you work day-to-day in a remote, highly autonomous environment and keep communication effective?
    I’m proactive and default to over-communicating in writing: clear tickets, concise status updates, and design/tech notes in docs. I break work into small, visible increments, ask questions early, and use async channels for most discussions while still valuing focused pairing sessions when needed. I’m comfortable making decisions independently, but I always surface trade-offs and involve the team when choices have broader impact.

Spacelift is hiring a Frontend Engineer (React, Remote, Europe) to own and evolve the UI of its infrastructure orchestration platform used by engineering teams to manage Terraform/OpenTofu, Pulumi, CloudFormation, and more. You’ll build performant, high-quality product interfaces in React, TypeScript, GraphQL (with AI coding tools like Claude Code/Cursor), working in small cross-functional product teams with strong engineering ownership, Stability Tuesdays for tech debt, and active frontend/design-system guilds. It’s a great fit if you have 3+ years with JS (2+ with React), a strong product mindset, enjoy autonomy and end-to-end feature ownership, and want to work on deeply technical infra tooling; compensation is €70k–95k + equity, with flexibility to go higher for outstanding candidates.