Senior Staff Engineer - Frontend
About Plane
Plane’s mission is to build the infrastructure the world’s work runs on. We want teams to move faster without losing context, and organizations to retain the flexibility and control they need. Our team is building that work infrastructure as an open, adaptable platform for projects, knowledge, and requests—simple enough for any team to adopt and dependable enough for organizations to build on.
Plane began in public on [GitHub](https://github.com/makeplane/plane) at the end of 2022. Since then, it has grown from an open-source project into a work management platform used by teams around the world. Organizations can use Plane as a managed Cloud service, run it on their own infrastructure, or deploy it inside fully isolated environments. Building in the open keeps us close to users and raises the standard for what we ship.
We believe the future of work will be shaped by people and agents working together. That makes shared context, explicit state, durable history, and accountable action more important—not less. Plane exists to make that future useful, legible, and within the organization's control.
Plane is backed by OSS Capital and built across San Francisco and Hyderabad. We work in small, collaborative teams, stay close to users, and care about both the visible product experience and the unglamorous details that make software dependable. People own problems end to end and add process only when it helps the work.
We are still early. If you want to help define what work infrastructure becomes—and build software that teams can make their own and organizations can depend on—we'd like to hear from you.
About the Role
We are looking for a Senior Staff Frontend Engineer to lead the technical direction of our frontend platform and build exceptional user experiences for a modern, collaborative product.
As a senior technical leader, you will drive frontend architecture, establish engineering best practices, and work across teams to deliver scalable, high-performance applications. This role requires deep expertise in modern frontend technologies, real-time collaboration systems, and performance optimization, along with the ability to mentor engineers and influence technical decisions across the organization.
What you will do?
Define and drive the frontend architecture and long-term technical strategy.
Design and build scalable, maintainable, and high-performance web applications.
Lead the development of complex user-facing features, reusable UI components, and frontend platforms.
Architect and enhance real-time collaboration capabilities, including synchronization, offline support, and serialization strategies.
Optimize rendering performance, application responsiveness, bundle size, and overall user experience.
Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and Backend teams to deliver high-quality solutions.
Build and evolve reusable design system components and frontend infrastructure.
Drive engineering excellence through architecture reviews, code reviews, mentoring, and technical guidance.
Improve observability by implementing analytics, monitoring, logging, and alerting solutions.
Prototype new technologies, evaluate technical approaches, and introduce engineering best practices.
Contribute to open-source initiatives where appropriate.
Skills You'll Need to Bring
A minimum of 8+ years of professional experience developing large-scale web applications.
Expert-level proficiency in TypeScript, JavaScript (ES6+), and React.js.
Strong expertise in HTML5, CSS3, responsive design, and advanced CSS techniques.
Deep understanding of browser rendering, performance optimization, and memory management.
Experience building scalable component libraries and design systems.
Strong understanding of frontend state management patterns (MobX, Redux, Zustand, or similar).
Experience with REST APIs, GraphQL, and WebSocket-based applications.
Strong understanding of accessibility (WCAG), usability, and UI/UX best practices.
Excellent problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills.
Experience mentoring engineers and driving technical initiatives across multiple teams.
It's a Plus If You Have
Experience building collaborative editors using ProseMirror, Tiptap.
Experience with real-time collaboration technologies such as CRDTs, Operational Transformation (OT), or similar synchronization techniques.
Experience developing Electron desktop applications.
Familiarity with backend technologies such as Python, Go, or Elixir.
Experience working with cloud-native infrastructure, including AWS, Kubernetes, and distributed systems.
Experience building or maintaining design systems and shared component libraries.
Contributions to open-source projects or active participation in the developer community.
Experience with observability tools such as DataDog and Sentry.
Tech Stack
Next.js/React.js frontend with TypeScript and Tailwind CSS, leveraging React Hooks for composable and reusable functionality.
MobX for state management and binding the data model to the UI.
ProseMirror-based rich text editor powering collaborative content editing.
Real-time synchronization engine built on WebSockets with offline support, powered by Elixir for fault tolerance and scalability.
Electron desktop application.
Public REST and GraphQL APIs providing secure access to application data.
Backend services built with Django (Python), Golang, Elixir, PostgreSQL, and Redis.
Cloud-native infrastructure hosted on AWS using Kubernetes (k8s) and Rancher.
Shared design system built with reusable React component libraries.
Monitoring, observability, and error tracking with DataDog and Sentry.
Development and collaboration tools including GitHub, Slack, Plane, Figma, and Whimsical.
Why Join Plane?
Join a fast-growing, globally-used product team shaping the future of work infrastructure for teams around the world.
Work in a high-trust, low-bureaucracy environment built for senior engineers who want ownership, not just tickets.
Competitive compensation and benefits.
Collaborate with a world-class, distributed engineering team solving hard technical problems at scale.
Be part of a high-growth organization with real opportunities for career advancement.