Principal Frontend Engineer at Havoc AI · LumiJobs
senior
$185k–$205k
H1B: no
Havoc AI Principal Frontend Engineer to architect, build, and scale real-time geospatial interfaces for autonomous systems across multiple domains. The role involves hands-on development, architectural guidance, and mentoring senior engineers.
Responsibilities
HavocAI is seeking a Principal Frontend Engineer to help architect, build, and scale the real-time interfaces operators use to command autonomous systems across air, surface, and subsurface domains.
Our operators command autonomous vehicles across air, surface, and subsurface domains through a single real-time geospatial interface. Live position and state data streams continuously onto a map, and the decisions made on that screen affect vehicles operating in the real world.
We are looking for a Principal Frontend Engineer with deep, hands-on experience building and scaling real-time geospatial applications. You have taken systems like this through significant growth in data volume and entity count, and you know from experience which problems arrive at each stage and how to get ahead of them. You will work directly with the Head of Frontend and a strong senior team, bringing that experience to the technical decisions that shape how the platform grows.
This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports.
Frontend Architecture & Real-Time Systems
Geospatial Engineering
Bring proven, production-tested patterns for high-frequency real-time data in React applications: transport-to-render design, update throttling, and keeping telemetry off the render path
Guide the design and evolution of the map layer system: layer lifecycle, interaction state, feature identity, and rendering performance on large feature sets
Work with the Head of Frontend and senior engineers on scaling decisions, contributing the perspective of someone who has made them before
Build alongside the team: implement the hard parts, set the example in code, and review with an eye toward what will hold up at scale
Identify performance and architectural risks early, before they become incidents
Communicate technical decisions clearly through design reviews, technical proposals, and code, building alignment without creating unnecessary process
Qualification
Data visualization depth (D33D and WebGLExperience with defenseWhat Success Looks LikeWithin your first 12 monthsImproved the performance
Required
10+ years of frontend engineering experience, including significant experience operating at Staff, Principal, or equivalent technical scope.
Deep production experience building and scaling high-volume, real-time applications.
Expert-level experience with React and TypeScript, including a first-principles understanding of React’s rendering model and frontend performance.
Deep experience building map-based geospatial applications using MapLibre, Mapbox GL, Deck.gl, or equivalent technologies.
Demonstrated experience optimizing large and dynamic geospatial feature sets.
Hands-on experience scaling a real-time application through significant growth in tracked entities, update frequency, or data volume.
Experience with multiple real-time communication technologies such as WebSockets, MQTT, gRPC-web, SSE, or similar protocols.
Deep browser performance expertise across rendering, memory, CPU, networking, and GPU bottlenecks.
Experience designing client-side data architectures using workers, batching, caching, state boundaries, and other techniques for isolating high-frequency workloads.
Experience designing applications for degraded or intermittent connectivity, including reconnection and state reconciliation.
Strong software architecture and systems-design fundamentals.
Demonstrated ability to make sound technical tradeoffs and sequence architectural changes within a production system.
Preferred
Experience taking an internal operational tool to a multi-tenant product
Data visualization depth (D3, custom charting, large-dataset rendering)
3D and WebGL: three.js, custom shaders, terrain, or vertically distributed asset rendering
Experience with defense, aerospace, robotics, or other operationally critical systems
What Success Looks Like
Within your first 12 months, you will have:
Helped establish a frontend architecture capable of supporting significantly greater numbers of autonomous assets, telemetry streams, and real-time updates.
Improved the performance, responsiveness, and reliability of HavocAI’s geospatial interfaces.
