Senior UI Developer (Based West Yorkshire)

Farnell

Farnell, an Avnet company, is a global high-service distributor of technology products, services and solutions for electronic system design, maintenance and repair.

We seek a Senior UI Developer to join our dynamic UI development team responsible for building and maintaining our global large-scale eCommerce platform. This role requires strong expertise in React, Node.js, and Apollo Client, focusing on delivering responsive, high-performance user interfaces for a seamless customer experience.

As a Senior UI Developer, you will work in a cross-functional team led by a full-time Product Owner. You will be supported by UX Designers, back-end developers and the wider UI developer team to build scalable and visually stunning user interfaces that will power our online storefront.

Specifically, you will work on personalisation, recommendations, merchandising and marketing content delivery to drive increased conversations and higher site revenues.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the development of user interfaces using React and related libraries to create highly interactive, user-friendly, and visually appealing applications.
• Work closely with product owners, UX/UI designers, and back-end engineers to transform business requirements into technical solutions, ensuring a seamless and cohesive e-commerce experience.
• Focus on optimizing the performance of the UI to ensure fast load times, smooth navigation, and a reactive experience across devices. This includes updating and refactoring our extensive caching solution, which is provided by Akamai at the front door but also relies on several layers of caching technologies deeper in the application stack.
• Implement data fetching and state management through Apollo Client and integrate the UI with RESTful and GraphQL APIs built with Node.js and Apollo Server.
• Advocate for and follow best practices for software development, including clean, maintainable code, automated testing, and code reviews.
• Mentor junior and mid-level developers, offering guidance on React development, front-end architecture, and best practices.
• Work with back-end engineers to integrate front-end with back-end services and help shape the architecture and performance of the entire application stack.
• Keep up-to-date with the latest developments in front-end technologies, especially within the React ecosystem and eCommerce trends.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• Proven experience as a Front-End or UI Developer, with hands-on React experience. Ideally, you will have held a senior position previously, or you can demonstrate why you should step up to the Senior level.
• Demonstrated competency in all of these technologies and tools - ReactJS, TypeScript, Node.js, Loadable Components, Jest, Styled Components, Storybook, GraphQL and Apollo (client/server) and Akamai caching.
• Strong understanding of React and its ecosystem.
• Experience with Apollo Client and GraphQL queries, mutation handling, and state management.
• Solid knowledge of Node.js and how to integrate the front-end with back-end services.
• Expertise in HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript (ES6+).
• Experience with responsive design.
• Experience with GitLab and their GitFlow version control process.
• Ability to collaborate with UX/UI designers and translate Figma and Storybook prototypes into functional, high-quality user interfaces.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, focusing on user-centric solutions.
• Familiarity with front-end testing frameworks (Jest in particular). We also do A/B testing via Adobe Target.
• Proficient in optimizing UI performance for large-scale applications, with experience implementing lazy loading, code splitting, and other advanced optimization techniques.
• Familiarity with the challenges of building and scaling eCommerce platforms is a plus.
• Previous experience in an Agile/Scrum development environment.

Soft Skills:

• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to work in partnership and across teams.
• Strong leadership qualities, including the ability to mentor junior developers and advocate for best practices in front-end development.
• Attention to detail with a passion for creating beautiful, functional, and user-centric designs.
• Ability to manage time and prioritize tasks effectively in a fast-paced environment.