React Lead (Full‑stack, React / TypeScript)

Summary

A hands-on technical leadership role where you will build and manage a full-stack React team to deliver AI-powered products for enterprise clients. You will be responsible for defining engineering standards and architecture while working hands-on with React and TypeScript. Additionally, you will collaborate closely with product and design leadership to shape the studio's engineering culture and scale its capabilities.

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Who are we

We are &above, a design‑led product studio that builds AI solutions at start‑up speed. We partner with ambitious enterprise tech companies like Google and their customers to craft innovative, end‑to‑end digital products.

We are looking for a React Lead to build and lead a React‑focused full‑stack engineering team at &above. This is a hands‑on full‑stack role: you will lead the architecture and delivery of modern React applications, while growing a world-class engineering team and setting standards for how we build AI‑powered products.

You will work closely with our Vue.js Lead, CTO and Principal Product Manager to ensure our teams are in sync, our engineering practices are world‑class, and our products scale.

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What you’ll deliver

1. Don’t ship &forget

• Lead the implementation of core user journeys in modern React and TypeScript.
• Build and maintain production‑grade SPAs and web apps, owning frontend and backend integration and contributing directly to backend services where needed.
• Translate product and design requirements into clear technical plans and incremental delivery.
• Own the quality of what ships: performance, reliability, accessibility and maintainability.
• Work in cross‑functional squads with design, product and backend engineers to ship MVPs and iterate.

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2. Shape a supportive, high‑bar team &culture

• Act as line manager for the growing React engineering team (targeting up to three full‑time engineers in your org within the first year, across frontend and backend).
• Provide day‑to‑day mentorship through pairing, code reviews and regular feedback.
• Help set clear expectations, goals and development plans for engineers at different levels.
• Create a healthy, supportive engineering culture focused on ownership, learning and high standards.

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3. Design a React stack you love &others rely on

• Define and evolve our standards for a modern React + TypeScript stack, including:
  • Project structure, state management and routing.
  • Testing strategy (unit, integration, and where appropriate e2e).
  • Error handling, logging and basic observability on the frontend.
• Collaborate with the CTO to roll out consistent engineering practices across teams and projects.
• Partner with backend engineers to design clean API contracts and integration patterns.
• Identify and address technical risks early, keeping stakeholders informed.

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4. Bridge stacks &build as one studio, not silos

• Work closely with our Vue.js Lead to keep teams aligned on patterns, quality bars and ways of working.
• Share lessons learned between stacks so we improve as one studio, not in silos.
• Contribute to shared components, design systems and internal tooling that can be used across projects and stacks.

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5. Translate complexity &ship simple, AI‑powered journeys

• Take a leading engineering role in our innovation workshops:
  • Join client technical discovery sessions to understand their systems and constraints.
  • Help translate business problems into pragmatic AI‑powered product concepts.
  • Design and implement proof‑of‑concepts that use AI to simplify workflows and unlock value.
• Take part in technical calls, demos and show‑and‑tell sessions with client stakeholders.
• Explain trade‑offs and technical decisions in clear, non‑jargon language.

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6. Design the rails &let small teams move fast

• Help define and refine “world‑class for our size” engineering processes:
  • Lightweight but effective agile rituals (stand‑ups, planning, retros).
  • Clear Definition of Ready / Done.
  • Incident handling, post‑mortems and continuous improvement.
• Champion developer experience: local dev ergonomics, CI, code review flow and release processes.
• Work closely with the Principal Product Manager to scale products in a way that balances speed and robustness.

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What we’re looking for

Must have

• Deep experience building production React + TypeScript applications.
• Comfortable acting as the technical lead on complex products, from discovery through to production.
• Experience across the stack:
  • Strong frontend fundamentals (state management, routing, forms, performance).
  • Solid understanding of web backends and APIs, and ability to contribute to backend implementation where needed.
• Experience line managing or directly leading other engineers (1:1s, feedback, growth support).
• Strong testing mindset, with hands‑on experience in at least unit, integration and qa testing.
• Proven ability to collaborate with design and product, working from Figma or prototypes to shipped experiences.
• Confidence in client‑facing situations: technical discovery calls, demos and explaining constraints and trade‑offs.
• Experience building AI‑powered products (LLM‑based features, chat interfaces, RAG‑style UIs, agentic flows).

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Nice to have

• Background in a product studio, agency or consultancy working with multiple clients.
• Experience designing or maintaining design systems or component libraries.
• Experience improving engineering processes and standards beyond a single team.
• Familiarity with observability tools on the frontend (for example Sentry, Application Insights, similar).
• Developer Experience as a first class citizen.

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Why join &above?

This is an exciting time to join as we grow our engineering capability and scale from a studio into an AI product powerhouse. As React Lead, you will:

• Build and lead the React / full‑stack capability from an early stage.
• Shape how we deliver AI‑powered products for some of the world’s most recognised tech businesses.
• Have clear line of sight to leadership and real influence over our engineering culture and practices.

This is a permanent role with the full &above benefits, including:

• 32 days’ holiday (including bank holidays).
• 8‑weeks working‑away allowance each year.
• Birthday off.
• Health and wellbeing budget including Vitality private healthcare and WellHub unlimited gym access and wellbeing apps.
• Cycle‑to‑work scheme and quarterly team socials.
• Quarterly OKRs and bonus opportunities, with monthly check‑ins to support your growth.
• A genuinely supportive culture in an innovative and inspiring workspace.