Senior Front End Engineer - React

Who We Are:

At VML, we are a beacon of innovation and growth in an ever-evolving world. Our heritage is built upon a century of combined expertise, where creativity meets technology, and diverse perspectives ignite inspiration. With the merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, we have forged a new path as a growth partner that is part creative agency, part consultancy, and part technology powerhouse. 

Our global family now encompasses over 30,000 employees across 150+ offices in 64 markets, each contributing to a culture that values connection, belonging, and the power of differences.  Our expertise spans the entire customer journey, offering deep insights in communications, commerce, consultancy, CRM, CX, data, production, and technology. We deliver end-to-end solutions that result in revolutionary work. 

Senior Front End Engineer required to join Satalia, a VML Enterprise Solutions company, on a contract basis. 

As a Senior Front-End Engineer, you won't just be writing code; you'll be a pivotal architect, owning the end-to-end delivery of high-quality, production-ready React single-page applications that power our cutting-edge solutions. This role offers the unique opportunity to drive technical excellence by championing code quality, robust testing (Vitest, Cypress), and best practices in front-end architecture, performance, and accessibility. You'll thrive in an Agile environment, contributing actively to workstreams, while also building modular, reusable components with Storybook and integrating with diverse 3rd party systems. Beyond technical contributions, you'll play a key role in shaping our team, mentoring junior developers, and confidently collaborating with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. If you're passionate about full ownership, continuous learning, and making a tangible impact on complex projects, then get in touch.

What you’ll be doing:

• Creating prototypes and high-quality production ready React front-end single page applications.
• Driving forward the quality – in code, unit testing, accessibility, performance, code reviews.
• Delivering on an Agile workstream of front-end developers on a project, contributing to daily stand-ups, planning, and estimates.
• Conversing confidently with technical and non-technical colleagues.
• Building modular layouts, reusable code and libraries for future use.
• Cooperating with design and marketing teams to gather and refine specifications and requirements for development.
• Being involved in existing and new integrations for the platform.
• Having full end-to-end ownership from idea to delivery, covering ongoing maintenance, expansion and scaling.
• Staying current with evolving standards and technologies, learning new skills as needed.
• Mentoring junior candidates.

What we want from you:

• Strong commercial experience with hands-on React development.
• Mastery of semantic HTML5, CSS3 (SASS/LESS), and TypeScript (as a preprocessor for JavaScript ES6+), adhering to industry coding standards.
• Proficient in state management with React Query.
• Solid understanding of fluid responsive layouts, cross-browser/device compatibility, and performance optimization, accessibility, SEO, security, and usability best practices.
• Experience with modern front-end build tools (e.g., Vite) and component development (Storybook).
• Commercial experience with SPA solutions, ideally for administrative CMS platforms, and integrating with 3rd party systems.
• Extensive experience with unit, E2E, and regression testing (Vitest, React Testing Library, Cypress). Experience with Jest is also valuable.
• Commercial experience using Git for Continuous Integration in large development teams.
• Solid understanding of Agile methodologies (Kanban and/or Scrum/sprint planning, story point estimation, refinement, retrospectives, demos).
• Excellent communication skills, capable of interacting directly with teams and stakeholders.
• Experience mentoring junior team members.
• Willingness to contribute to both large, complex projects and smaller tasks.

If you know some of this, even better:

• Experience with Next.js for server-side or serverless solutions.
• Experience with Mock Service Worker for API mocking.
• Experience with React Hook Form for form state management.
• Experience of working with other CMS platforms such as AEM, Sitecore or SFCC.
• Any knowledge of Node.js, Express, SQL, Lambda, AWS.
• Experience of working on Java/Node/C#/PHP projects would be beneficial.

What we can offer you:

Alongside the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting brands around the world, we’ll also prioritise your career development and help you grow your skills. We’ll empower you to make a difference, allow you to be yourself, and respect who you are.

We offer a great benefits package including a discretionary bonus scheme, training opportunities, competitive pension, medical insurance, life assurance, social events, opportunities to buy and sell holidays, family friendly policies, discounts with hundreds of retailers and much more.

Our personality and behaviours: We believe that we are what we do, not just what we say. Our shared values and behaviours show how to bring the VML Enterprise Solution's culture to life through the actions we all take every day:

• Connect Meaningfully
• Inspire Creatively
• Include Purposefully
• Approach Positively

Our brilliant, talented people are what makes VML Enterprise Solutions what we are. That’s why we look for people who go beyond and always push our thinking to be better than yesterday.

Satalia, a VML Enterprise Solutions Company, is a community of individuals devoted to working on diverse and challenging projects, allowing you to flex your technical skills whilst working with a tight knit team of high performing colleagues. As an organisation, we push the boundaries of data science, optimisation and artificial intelligence to solve the most complex problems in industry.    

VML is a leading creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce to create connected brands and drive growth.

We build technologies that radically improve the operational efficiency, customer and employee satisfaction of our clients. We do this through product development and bespoke AI services.   

Led by our founder (who is also WPP’s Chief AI Officer), Satalia’s ambition is to become a decentralised organisation of the future. Today this involves developing tools and processes to liberate and automate manual repetitive tasks, with a focus on freedom, transparency and trust. At the core of our thinking is an approach to wellbeing and inclusivity. We unpack human behaviour and unpick prejudice to ensure a safe and inviting environment. We offer true flexible working and allow our employees to find the working practice that makes them most productive. At Satalia, your opinion matters and your achievements are celebrated.   

We’re using technology, and concepts like organisational swarms and decentralisation to redesign how organisations operate. Using ourselves as a testbed, we’re building the foundations for a new, more effective organisational structure that anyone can use.   

We are investing massively in developing next generation generative AI tools, including workstreams covering text, image, video, audio, and research. We are building large scale, enterprise grade solutions and serving these innovations to our clients and WPP agency partners.  

#LI-AS1 #LI-EMEA 

WPP (VML Enterprise Solutions) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. 

VML is a WPP Agency. For more information, please visit our website, and follow VML on our social channels via Instagram, LinkedIn, and X. 

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