Front end architect

Job description

Objective:
We are seeking a visionary and deeply technical Frontend Architect to define the long-term technical vision and strategy for our user-facing applications.

You will be responsible for designing the foundational patterns, standards, and core components that empower multiple engineering teams to build high-quality, scalable, and cohesive user experiences.

This is a senior, hands-on, individual contributor role focused on driving architectural excellence and innovation across the entire frontend ecosystem.
About HCL Software:
HCL Software is the software business division of HCLTech, fueling the Digital+ Economy by developing, sharing, and supporting solutions in five key areas:
- Business & Industry Applications
- AI and Intelligent Operations
- Total Experience
- Data & Analytics
- Cybersecurity
These five solution areas represent massive opportunities for growth and enable total flexibility in deployment — efficiently managing data, applications, workloads, and infrastructure, leveraging our cloud options and the power of Gen AI.
About HCL Commerce:
HCL Commerce is a robust and scalable e-commerce platform that supports various business models including B2 C, B2 B, B2 B2 C, D2 C, and Market Places.

Known for its enterprise-grade performance, HCL Commerce offers advanced features and AI capabilities to enhance online transactions and customer experiences.
Responsibilities
- Frontend Vision and Strategy: Define and drive the long-term architectural roadmap for the frontend platform, ensuring alignment with product and business goals.
- Architectural Design and Governance: Design, document, and govern scalable, cross-cutting architectural patterns and solutions (e.g., micro-frontends, state management, authentication, API consumption).

Ensure adherence to these patterns across all delivery teams.
- Build & Package Management Strategy: Architect and govern the end-to-end build, testing, and packaging strategy for all frontend applications.

Define best practices for code organization and monorepo management within Azure Repos, establish versioning (Sem Ver) and publishing workflows for private packages in Azure Artifacts (NPM), and design reusable CI/CD pipeline patterns.
- Design Systems & Reusable Components: Lead the technical vision and evolution of our design system and shared component libraries, promoting reusability and consistency across all products.
- Performance, Scalability, & Accessibility Standards: Establish and enforce organization-wide standards and best practices for web performance, scalability, security, and accessibility (a11y), including setting performance budgets and defining core metrics.
- Technical Research and Innovation: Evaluate emerging technologies, frameworks, and patterns.

Lead proof-of-concepts (Po Cs) and prototyping efforts to de-risk new technologies and demonstrate their value.
- Mentorship and Influence: Provide high-level technical guidance and mentorship to Tech Leads and senior engineers across multiple teams, acting as a key subject matter expert and decision-maker on complex technical challenges.
Qualifications
- Experience: 12+ years of hands-on software development experience, including at least 2+ years in a Frontend Architect, Principal Engineer, or equivalent senior technical leadership role with cross-team impact.
- Architectural Expertise: Demonstrated mastery of frontend architectural patterns, including micro-frontends, API contract design from a consumer perspective, large-scale state management strategies, and client-side authentication/authorization patterns.
- Deep Frontend Expertise: Expert-level knowledge of the modern Java Script/Type Script ecosystem, including a deep understanding of the trade-offs between major frameworks (React, Angular, Vue).

Deep knowledge of React required.
- Design System Leadership: Proven experience designing, building, and governing a design system or shared component library used by multiple teams in a large-scale application.
- Web Performance & Accessibility (a11y): Expert-level knowledge of web performance optimization techniques, Core Web Vitals, and accessibility standards (WCAG).

Experience with performance monitoring and diagnostic tools is required.
- Leadership & Communication: Exceptional ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Proven experience influencing without authority and driving technical alignment across multiple teams through clear documentation and presentations.
- Build, Packaging, & Dev Ops:
- Deep expertise in the modern build ecosystem (Vite, Webpack, tsup) and dependency management.
- Proven experience architecting and managing package distribution using private NPM registries, specifically Azure Artifacts.
- Strong understanding of CI/CD principles and experience designing scalable pipeline patterns, preferably with Azure Pipelines.
- Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience with monorepo management strategies and tools (e.g., Turborepo, Nx).
- Experience with Graph QL and federated data architectures from a client perspective.
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (Azure preferred) and infrastructure-as-code.
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a relevant field (or equivalent practical experience).

Required Skill Profession

Other General