Lead Frontend Engineer in Southampton
Lead Frontend Engineer

Lead Frontend Engineer in Southampton

Southampton Full-Time 36000 - 60000 £ / year (est.) Home office possible
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead frontend development, ensuring high-quality web and app experiences that change lives.
  • Company: Tembo, a mission-driven fintech tackling homeownership challenges.
  • Benefits: Remote-first culture, enhanced parental benefits, health insurance, and your birthday off.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact on people's lives while working with innovative tech.
  • Qualifications: 6+ years in frontend development, expertise in React and React Native.
  • Other info: Join a diverse team committed to meaningful work and personal growth.

The predicted salary is between 36000 - 60000 £ per year.

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. We’re tackling one of the biggest challenges of our generation: access to homeownership. Through innovative mortgage products, affordability schemes, and savings tools like our Lifetime ISA and HomeSaver, we help people who’ve been locked out of the property ladder finally get the keys to their own place. Our work directly changes lives, every single day — and that sense of impact is what drives everything we do.

We’re proud to be:

  • 4.9-rated on Trustpilot, with every review celebrated
  • Well funded by 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 Frontend Lead Engineer to own and evolve our web and app experiences. This is a senior, hands-on engineering leadership role. You’ll take ownership of our frontend codebases, principles, and delivery — while working closely with product and design to ship high-quality, customer-critical features. Our primary app codebases are React Native, with React and Next.js used across the wider organisation. You’ll be a key technical leader in the business, setting the bar for quality, collaboration, and reliability in a product that handles real money and real lives.

What You’ll Be Doing

  • Technical Ownership
  • Own the frontend architecture across our mobile apps and web surfaces
  • Set and evolve standards for code quality, structure, testing, and performance
  • Make pragmatic decisions around trade-offs, technical debt, and long-term maintainability
  • Own frontend release processes, including mobile app store releases and hotfixes
  • Work closely with our CPO and Lead Product Designer to shape product direction
  • Translate product ideas into well-scoped, deliverable technical plans
  • Act as a strong voice for feasibility, quality, and customer impact during product discovery
  • Quality & Reliability
    • Champion a strong testing culture (unit, integration, E2E)
    • Ensure frontend reliability, performance, and crash-free experiences
    • Take responsibility for bugs, incidents, and regressions — and build systems to prevent them
  • Team Leadership & Coaching
    • Coach and mentor frontend engineers, helping them grow technically and professionally
    • Lead by example through high-quality, hands-on contribution
    • Foster a collaborative, high-trust engineering culture
    • Improve team processes, delivery cadence, and developer experience
    • Identify opportunities to improve tooling, workflows, and shared frontend foundations
    • Introduce better observability, monitoring, and debugging practices on the frontend
    • Keep up with the React / React Native ecosystem and bring back what’s genuinely useful

    About You

    • 6+ years of professional frontend experience, with deep expertise in React and React Native
    • Proven experience owning and scaling frontend codebases in production
    • Strong testing mindset — you care deeply about quality and correctness
    • Excellent collaborator who enjoys working closely with product and design
    • Comfortable leading others while remaining hands-on
    • Experience shipping and maintaining mobile apps in production environments
    • Calm, pragmatic decision-maker who understands trade-offs in fast-moving teams
    • Startup mindset: you move quickly, take responsibility, and improve things rather than waiting for permission
    • Fintech or regulated-industry experience
    • Experience with performance optimisation, error tracking, and analytics
    • Experience building or contributing to design systems
    • Familiarity with feature flags, A/B testing, or experiment-driven development

    Why Join Tembo?

    • Do genuinely meaningful work that changes people’s lives
    • Work alongside smart, mission-driven colleagues who care deeply about customers
    • Remote-first environment with a high degree of trust and ownership
    • Recently relaunched benefits package, including:
    • Enhanced parental benefits
    • Health insurance
    • Your birthday off

    We’re committed to diversity and inclusion and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.

    Lead Frontend Engineer in Southampton employer: Tembo

    At Tembo, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer, offering a remote-first environment that fosters trust and ownership among our team members. Our commitment to meaningful work is matched by our recently enhanced benefits package, which includes health insurance and additional parental benefits, ensuring our employees feel valued and supported. With a strong focus on professional growth and a collaborative culture, we empower our Lead Frontend Engineers to make a real impact in helping people achieve homeownership.
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    Contact Detail:

    Tembo Recruiting Team

    StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫

    We think this is how you could land Lead Frontend Engineer in Southampton

    ✨Tip Number 1

    Network like a pro! Reach out to folks in your industry on LinkedIn or at local meetups. A friendly chat can lead to opportunities that aren’t even advertised yet.

    ✨Tip Number 2

    Show off your skills! Create a portfolio showcasing your best work, especially projects using React and React Native. This gives potential employers a taste of what you can do.

    ✨Tip Number 3

    Prepare for interviews by practising common technical questions and coding challenges. We all know the tech world moves fast, so being sharp will set you apart!

    ✨Tip Number 4

    Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen. Plus, we love seeing candidates who are genuinely interested in our mission.

    We think you need these skills to ace Lead Frontend Engineer in Southampton

    React
    React Native
    Next.js
    Frontend Architecture
    Code Quality Standards
    Testing Culture (Unit, Integration, E2E)
    Performance Optimisation
    Error Tracking
    Analytics
    Team Leadership
    Mentoring
    Collaboration with Product and Design
    Mobile App Development
    Feature Flags
    A/B Testing

    Some tips for your application 🫡

    Show Your Passion: When you're writing your application, let your enthusiasm for the role shine through! We want to see how much you care about making homeownership accessible and how your skills can contribute to our mission.

    Tailor Your CV: Make sure your CV is tailored to the Lead Frontend Engineer position. Highlight your experience with React and React Native, and don’t forget to mention any relevant projects that showcase your technical ownership and leadership skills.

    Craft a Compelling Cover Letter: Your cover letter is your chance to tell us why you’re the perfect fit for Tembo. Share specific examples of how you've tackled challenges in previous roles and how you can help us improve our frontend experiences.

    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 you’re considered for this exciting opportunity to make a real impact!

    How to prepare for a job interview at Tembo

    ✨Know Your Tech Stack

    Make sure you’re well-versed in React, React Native, and Next.js. Brush up on your knowledge of frontend architecture and be ready to discuss how you've owned and scaled codebases in the past. This will show that you can hit the ground running!

    ✨Showcase Your Problem-Solving Skills

    Prepare examples of how you've tackled technical debt or made pragmatic decisions in fast-paced environments. Be ready to discuss trade-offs you've made and how they impacted the product. This will demonstrate your calm, pragmatic decision-making abilities.

    ✨Emphasise Collaboration

    Since this role involves working closely with product and design teams, come prepared with examples of successful collaborations. Talk about how you’ve fostered a high-trust engineering culture and improved team processes. This will highlight your excellent collaboration skills.

    ✨Demonstrate Your Testing Mindset

    Be ready to discuss your approach to quality assurance and testing. Share your experiences with unit, integration, and E2E testing, and how you’ve championed a strong testing culture in your previous roles. This will show that you care deeply about delivering reliable, high-quality products.

    Lead Frontend Engineer in Southampton
    Tembo
    Location: Southampton

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