Head of Frontend (Mobile & Web) in London
Head of Frontend (Mobile & Web)

Head of Frontend (Mobile & Web) in London

London Full-Time 48000 - 72000 £ / year (est.) No home office possible
Tembo

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead frontend engineering for mobile and web, ensuring quality and reliability.
  • Company: Tembo, a fintech company transforming homeownership experiences.
  • Benefits: Remote-first culture, enhanced parental benefits, health insurance, and your birthday off.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact on people's lives through innovative financial solutions.
  • Qualifications: 7+ years in frontend engineering with expertise in React and React Native.
  • Other info: Join a diverse team committed to professionalism and trust.

The predicted salary is between 48000 - 72000 £ per year.

About Tembo

At Tembo, we’re on a mission to make home happen — helping people buy their first home, remortgage, move up the ladder, and save smarter towards homeownership. Our app and web experiences sit at the heart of life-changing financial decisions. Customers trust us with their savings, mortgages, and futures. That means quality, reliability, and predictability aren’t optional — they’re fundamental.

We’re proud to be:

  • ⭐ 4.8-rated on Trustpilot (~5k reviews)
  • Well funded by Gresham House, Goodwater Capital, Aviva, McPike Family Global Office, Ascension, Love Ventures, and ethical backers including Fair by Design, Barrow Cadbury, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and Big Society Capital

The Role

We’re looking for a hands-on Head of Frontend (Mobile & Web) to own our customer-facing engineering surfaces end-to-end. This is a functional leadership role. You will be accountable for how frontend engineering operates at Tembo — from architecture and standards to delivery predictability and production reliability. You’ll lead a small team of frontend engineers working within cross-functional squads, while retaining ownership of frontend craft, quality gates, release discipline, and technical standards across the organisation. You will remain deeply hands-on — contributing code, reviewing PRs, shaping architecture — but you will also be responsible for ensuring frontend delivery is calm, predictable, and high-quality. When something breaks in production, you own the response and the systemic fix. When delivery drifts, you correct it. When standards need raising, you define and implement them. Your mandate is simple: make frontend a highly reliable, high-trust function that the business depends on with confidence. You will report to the CTO and work in close partnership with the CPO and Head of Engineering.

What You’ll Own

  • Delivery & Predictability
  • Own frontend release readiness and mobile app store submissions
  • Define and uphold clear quality gates before production release
  • Improve delivery predictability through better planning, estimation, and technical scoping
  • Ensure frontend commitments are realistic and consistently met
  • Partner with Product to make conscious, well-informed trade-offs
  • Production Reliability
    • Be accountable for frontend stability, crash rates, and performance
    • Improve observability, monitoring, and debugging practices
    • Lead incident response for frontend issues and drive systemic fixes
    • Build processes that prevent recurring production regressions
  • Technical Direction
    • Own architecture across React Native (mobile) and React / Next.js (web)
    • Make pragmatic decisions around technical debt and long-term maintainability
    • Introduce and evolve testing standards (unit, integration, E2E)
    • Raise the bar for code quality, performance, and engineering discipline
  • Functional Leadership
    • Lead, mentor, and develop frontend engineers
    • Set clear expectations and performance standards
    • Improve ways of working across squads while maintaining frontend coherence
    • Hire and grow the frontend function over time
  • Product Partnership
    • Work closely with the CPO and Lead Product Designer during discovery and planning
    • Translate product ambition into well-scoped technical plans
    • Surface technical risks early and clearly
    • Contribute commercially-minded judgement in a regulated fintech environment

    About You

    • 7+ years of frontend engineering experience, with deep expertise in React and React Native
    • You’ve owned production mobile apps and web platforms in real-world environments
    • You’ve led a team and been accountable for delivery outcomes — not just features
    • You’ve inherited existing systems and improved their reliability and predictability
    • You think in systems, not just components
    • You care deeply about quality — but you understand commercial trade-offs
    • You’re calm under pressure and comfortable carrying responsibility
    • You remain highly hands-on and enjoy building
    • You don’t just improve code. You improve how engineering operates.

    Bonus Points

    • Experience in fintech or other regulated industries
    • Experience improving release processes or stabilising a scaling codebase
    • Experience building or contributing to design systems
    • Experience implementing observability and crash analytics in mobile environments
    • Familiarity with feature flags and experiment-driven development

    Why Join Tembo?

    • Work on products that directly change people’s lives
    • Operate at a stage where professionalism, trust, and impact truly matter
    • High-trust, remote-first culture with real ownership
    • Recently relaunched benefits package including:
    • Enhanced parental benefits
    • Health insurance
    • Your birthday off
    • An abroad company away day (Portugal)

    We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.

    Head of Frontend (Mobile & Web) in London employer: Tembo

    At Tembo, we pride ourselves on being a high-trust, remote-first employer that empowers our team members to make a real impact in people's lives through innovative financial solutions. With a recently enhanced benefits package, including health insurance and generous parental leave, we foster a supportive work culture that prioritises employee growth and well-being. Join us to lead a talented team of frontend engineers in a dynamic environment where your contributions directly shape the future of homeownership.
    Tembo

    Contact Detail:

    Tembo Recruiting Team

    StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫

    We think this is how you could land Head of Frontend (Mobile & Web) in London

    Tip Number 1

    Network like a pro! Reach out to folks in your industry on LinkedIn or at meetups. A personal connection can often get you a foot in the door faster than any application.

    Tip Number 2

    Show off your skills! Create a portfolio showcasing your best frontend projects. When you apply through our website, include links to your work so we can see what you can do!

    Tip Number 3

    Prepare for interviews by practising common questions and coding challenges. We love seeing candidates who can think on their feet and demonstrate their problem-solving skills.

    Tip Number 4

    Follow up after interviews! A quick thank-you email can leave a lasting impression. It shows you're genuinely interested in the role and keeps you on our radar.

    We think you need these skills to ace Head of Frontend (Mobile & Web) in London

    Frontend Engineering
    React
    React Native
    Next.js
    Production Reliability
    Incident Response
    Quality Gates
    Technical Scoping
    Performance Monitoring
    Testing Standards
    Team Leadership
    Mentoring
    Cross-Functional Collaboration
    Commercial Judgement
    System Thinking

    Some tips for your application 🫡

    Tailor Your Application: Make sure to customise your CV and cover letter for the Head of Frontend role. Highlight your experience with React and React Native, and how you've improved delivery predictability in past roles. We want to see how you can bring your unique skills to Tembo!

    Showcase Your Leadership Skills: Since this is a functional leadership role, don’t forget to emphasise your experience leading teams and driving outcomes. Share specific examples of how you've mentored engineers and improved ways of working. We love seeing how you’ve made a difference!

    Be Hands-On: We’re looking for someone who’s not just about the big picture but also enjoys getting into the nitty-gritty. Mention any hands-on coding experience you have, especially in production environments. Show us that you’re ready to roll up your sleeves!

    Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to apply directly through our website. It’s the best way for us to receive your application and ensures it gets the attention it deserves. Plus, it shows you’re keen on joining our team at Tembo!

    How to prepare for a job interview at Tembo

    Know Your Tech Stack Inside Out

    Make sure you’re well-versed in React, React Native, and any other technologies mentioned in the job description. Be prepared to discuss your past experiences with these frameworks, including specific challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

    Showcase Your Leadership Skills

    As a Head of Frontend, you'll need to demonstrate your ability to lead and mentor a team. Prepare examples of how you've successfully managed teams, improved processes, or raised standards in previous roles. Highlight your approach to fostering a collaborative environment.

    Prepare for Scenario-Based Questions

    Expect questions that assess your problem-solving skills, especially around production issues and delivery predictability. Think of real-life scenarios where you had to respond to a production failure or improve a release process, and be ready to explain your thought process.

    Understand Tembo's Mission and Values

    Familiarise yourself with Tembo’s mission to help people achieve homeownership. Be ready to discuss how your technical expertise aligns with their goals and how you can contribute to making their app and web experiences reliable and high-quality.

    Head of Frontend (Mobile & Web) in London
    Tembo
    Location: London

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