Principal Frontend Engineer
Sydney | 5 days in the office | Big Wave Digital
Let’s not pretend this is just another frontend role.
This is the front door of a fintech. And right now, it’s being rebuilt properly.
The Company
You’ll be joining one of Big Wave Digital’s premier partner clients.
A scaling fintech. Serious growth. Right in the middle of an AI transformation that’s changing how customers discover, onboard, and interact with the platform.
Everything you build here connects directly to acquisition, conversion, and revenue.
No hiding behind internal tools. This is what customers see first.
The Mission
You own every customer-facing touchpoint before they become a user.
Website. Onboarding. SSO. Acquisition flows.
This is where first impressions are made and where growth is won or lost.
And your job?
Make it feel exceptional. Not just functional.
What You’ll Actually Do
You’re not here to “build components”.
You’re here to set the standard for frontend quality.
You will:
- Own the frontend experience across the entire acquisition journey
- Work directly with Product and Design to close the gap between what was imagined and what users actually feel
- Build in React and Next.js, properly, at scale
- Treat Core Web Vitals and Lighthouse scores as the baseline, not the goal
- Make accessibility (WCAG, ARIA, semantic HTML) part of how things are built, not added later
- Architect for the real world: slow devices, bad connections, unpredictable conditions
- Design systems and patterns that scale across the business
- Fix the subtle things: interaction latency, layout shift, animation jank. The details most teams ignore but users feel instantly
What Matters Here
This role is for someone who cares about frontend as a craft.
Not just how it looks. How it performs. How it feels. How it converts.
You probably:
- Have deep expertise in React and Next.js
- Have actually improved Core Web Vitals in production, not just read about them
- Understand accessibility properly, not superficially
- Have built for the full device spectrum, not just your MacBook on fast WiFi
- Are comfortable working with headless CMS and content-driven architectures
- Have strong opinions about what “good frontend” actually means
And most importantly:
You understand that a faster, more accessible, better-designed frontend is a business outcome.
The Environment
Same deal as the mobile role.
Sydney. 5 days in the office. Non negotiable.
Because this team moves quickly. Ideas get challenged live. Decisions happen fast.
You’ll be working side by side with Product and Design, not throwing tickets over a wall.
Why This Role Stands Out
Most frontend roles sit downstream.
This one sits at the point of impact.
- You influence growth directly
- You shape the first impression of the entire product
- You define what “good” looks like for frontend across the company
And with AI entering the mix, the way users interact with this platform is evolving fast.
You won’t just keep up with that.
You’ll help define it.
If This Sounds Like You
You’ve probably argued about performance budgets. You’ve probably noticed layout shift when no one else did. You’ve probably rebuilt something just because it “didn’t feel right”.
And you want your work to actually matter.
Apply via Big Wave Digital
Or reach out for a proper conversation: keiran@bigwavedigital.com.au