Senior Front-End Engineer at Sprout Social in Chicago, IL

At Sprout Social we are building software that is made to last. Our 25,000+ customers rely on us daily to effectively collaborate and engage with their customers across their social networks. Sprout Social is used by companies like the Chicago Bulls, Sony Electronics, Indiana University, Make-a-wish Foundation, Edelman, and Subaru to create stronger relationships with their customers through social media.

Our work has to adapt as brands are innovating on workflows for content creation, real time customer service, marketing campaigns, and data driven decisions. Our front-end engineers utilize modern Javascript practices to build powerful web applications and intuitive user experiences. We use a variety of web technologies, including React, Redux, Styled Components and Jest, to create highly scalable software that is nimble enough to adapt to new capabilities being offered by social network APIs.

We do not operate as lone wolves or “10x devs.” Instead, we’re building diverse, collaborative teams that get the best results sustainably. Embedded as a member of one of our cross-functional engineering squads, you will be part of the day-to-day Agile development environment. Front-end engineers work in tandem with Platform developers, QA, Design, and management to drive our product initiatives to successful outcomes.

We’re looking for a creative, highly motivated, and inquisitive learner to build great software with us. If you confidently write web applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS, we’d love to talk with you.

Qualifications

These are the minimum qualifications that our hiring team is looking for in this role:

• 3+ years of experience with planning, building, and releasing frontend applications with web technologies (Javascript, HTML, and CSS)

Additionally, these are the preferred qualifications that would indicate a particularly strong candidate:

• Experience building web applications with React, Redux, and/or similar web technologies.
• Experience working in a large codebase
• Communication and project management skills from collaborating with people across different teams and functional areas.

Within 1 month, you will:

• Complete Sprout’s New Hire training program alongside other new Sprout team members.
• Deliver business value by shipping your first code change with active pairing/mentoring from your teammates.
• Learn how code is deployed to our end users through collaboration with front end developers on your team.
• Have a firm understanding of the team’s roadmap and the team’s Agile processes by having discussions with your team’s product manager.

Within 3 months, you will:

• Independently own and deliver stories without peer consultation given user acceptance criteria and visual mockups.
• Adhere to the team’s engineering best practices, such as testing expectations, shared patterns, and documentation.
• Openly communicate with all disciplines of the team, including back-end engineers, QA, product design and product managers, in order to move the team’s work forward.
• Contribute to team processes by participating in team activities, such as code review, estimation, technical specification planning, collaboration in requirements definition, and contribution of feedback during retrospectives.
• Fix production bugs by participating in your team’s support rotation.

Within 6 months, you will:

• Author a technical specification plan for a roadmap project and collaborate with teammates to create an agreed upon delivery plan.
• Mentor junior teammates to provide guidance and coaching on code implementation, design review, and other software engineering and Agile practices.
• Understand how the team uses React and other JavaScript frameworks and be comfortable explaining relevant details to other engineers.
• Collaborate effectively with your team’s product manager and QA to ensure that projects are delivered on time and with quality.
• Understand the web application’s JavaScript build system (e.g. Gulp, webpack). Optionally, you may have contributed enhancements to our local and production build tasks.
• Have knowledge of your team’s target customer base and their most common use cases within the application.

Within 12 months, you will:

• Have an understanding of all aspects of Sprout’s web application, including server side web code, production hosting infrastructure, and ancillary services, such as the PDF generation and email delivery services.
• Demonstrate end-to-end responsibility for delivering roadmap projects on time, from technical planning to performing/guiding implementation to testing to final delivery.
• Balance the continuum of trade-offs during code design, knowing that solutions can favor faster delivery with less strict technical requirements or solutions can favor future technical maintainability with delayed delivery of customer value.
• Identify a technical initiative (e.g. technical debt, introduction of a new system, need for a new JavaScript dependency, performance improvement, etc) that is prioritized as a quarterly roadmap project for your team.

Of course what is outlined above is the ideal timeline, but things may shift based on business needs and other projects and tasks could be added at the discretion of your manager.

About Sprout Social

Sprout Social powers open communication between individuals, brands and communities through elegant, sophisticated software. We are relentless about solving hard problems for our customers and committed to both customer and team success. Our team’s shared belief in Sprout’s mission promotes a culture of openness, empowerment and fun.

We’re proud to regularly be recognized for our team, product and culture. Our benefits program includes:

• Insurance and benefit options that are built for both individuals and families
• Progressive policies to support work/life balance, like our flexible paid time off and parental leave program
• High-quality and well-maintained equipment—your computer will never prevent you from doing your best
• Wellness initiatives to ensure both health and mental well-being of our team
• Ongoing education and development opportunities via our Grow@Sprout program, employee-led diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and mentorship programs for aspiring leaders
• Growing corporate social responsibility program that is driven by the involvement and passion of our team members
• Beautiful, convenient and state-of-the-art offices in Chicago’s Loop and downtown Seattle, for those who prefer an office setting.