Frontend Lead Engineer

At Koalafi, we believe in a world where no one has to put an important purchase on hold. That’s why we’re making it easier for more people to pay for big purchases over time.

Retailers across the country rely on us to offer flexible lease-to-own financing to their non-prime consumers, while increasing sales and strengthening customer loyalty. Their 2M+ customers love us because we provide a flexible way for them to make payments and give them an opportunity to improve their credit. Our 200+ Koalafi teammates enjoy inspiring and challenging work that accelerates their careers.

Interested in learning more about how we’re transforming the financing experience and joining our team?

About the role

You will help build the next generation of how our customers interface & apply for financing with Koalafi. Within the team you will champion and drive our front-end strategy as it continues to mature, and furthermore you will share your learnings with the broader Tech organization to help refine strategy within Tech as a whole. You’ll develop in the latest technologies as we continue to modernize legacy systems by moving to cloud-based micro-service platform(s), all while focusing on improving the customer experience by making it faster, simpler, and easier to use.

We want to deploy solutions early and often to find out what works and what doesn't, but we also want to ensure we are doing so in a targeted and analytical manner. Our new ecosystem utilizes technologies across the stack, including but not limited to: React, GoLang, Postgres, and Kubernetes within AWS. These services work in tandem with our legacy platforms, which are still a part of our core business and must be maintained as we continue to decommission them piece by piece. So, if you are a strong engineer with the ability to learn and adapt, we would love to hear from you!

What you’ll do

Delivery

• Work with Design and Product to improve and maintain the application experience for both our customers and merchant partners

• Review and understand high level feature requirements to propose implementation options and define user stories

• Collaborate cross-domain to further understand potential impacts and limitations of proposed requirements

• Actively engage in agile processes including sprint planning, retrospectives, and daily stand-ups

• Oversee delivery of features step by step: develop implementation plans, coordinate tasks with teammates, communicate with stakeholders, devise testing strategy, and deliver to production

• Help to evaluate priority, troubleshoot, and resolve bugs across the stack

Influence

• Research and implement emerging technologies to improve system performance and customer experience

• Drive front-end strategy within the team, with a focusing on maintainability and extendibility

• Champion new ideas to shape strategy for the Tech organization as a whole

• Act as a technical mentor, guiding engineers on best practices and modern standards pertaining to UI development

• Participate in code reviews to ensure high-quality standards as well as share knowledge across the team

Optimization

• Improve application observability to better understand customer behavior and identify areas for improvement

• Minimize application bundle size and load times to minimize friction

• Utilize AI tooling in day to day tasks to streamline implementation cycles

About you

• Four-year college degree in Computer Science/Engineering or Information Systems required

• 6+ years of experience with modern web technologies (React, Vue, Angular)

• React preferred

• Experience in UX from accessibility to user behavior to responsive/adaptive web design

• Knowledge of front-end tooling and best practices in areas such as state management, component libraries, and performance optimizations

• Experience in writing end to end test suites using tooling that simulates user behavior (Cypress, Playwright, etc.)

• Knowledge of building and consuming REST APIs using modern programming languages (Golang, Java, Node, Python, etc.).

• Golang preferred

• Understanding of HTTP/REST architecture and operation for APIs/Orchestration

• Knowledge of architecting and delivering applications in AWS

• Knowledge of scrum/agile software development process

• Exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving abilities

• Highly self-motivated and directed, with keen attention to detail

• Ability to work in a team-oriented, collaborative environment

• Excellent communication skills with strong EQ

• Location Requirement: This position requires regular in-person attendance at one of our two office locations (Richmond, VA or Arlington, VA). Candidates must already be located within a commutable distance to either location, as relocation assistance is not available at this time.

Why choose Koalafi: A career at Koalafi means opportunities to tackle exciting challenges every single day. We take pride in a culture of innovation, trust, and ownership. You'll get outside your comfort zone, build meaningful relationships, and most of all, take charge of projects that ultimately help people get the things they need most.

Benefits:

At Koalafi, you will have a direct impact on our products and help shape the company’s success. We offer competitive compensation & benefits packages to keep you at your best:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage

• 20 PTO days + 11 paid holidays

• 401(k) retirement with company matching

• Student Loan & Tuition Reimbursement

• Commuter assistance

• Parental leave (maternal + paternal)

• Inclusion and Associate Engagement Programs

Who we are & what we value:

• We focus on what’s most important

• We set clear expectations and deliver

• We embrace challenges to reach our full potential

• We ask, “How can this be better?”

• We move fast together