7+ years of web software development experience, particularly in pushing browser limits
Proficiency in TypeScript and familiarity with React, with strong reasoning for alternative tools
Systems-level thinking focused on memory management and data serialization
Background in building systems where data integrity and performance are critical
Experience with GPU rendering or technical visualizations is highly valued.
Responsibilities
Design and enhance data pipelines using advanced browser features
Develop interactive visualizations for complex telemetry data
Address performance challenges beyond standard frameworks
Create composable UI systems for technical users requiring high data fidelity
Collaborate on API design and data serialization with backend teams.
Benefits
Flexible work environment with in-person collaboration twice a week
Opportunity to contribute to the foundational systems of a growing platform
Access to cutting-edge technologies and engineering challenges
Support for relocation to LA or remote work options for select candidates
Equity participation in a fast-growing startup.
Full Job Description
In This Role, You'll:
Design and optimize data pipelines that run entirely in the browser: Web Workers processing Apache Arrow binary data, persistent caching in the Origin Private File System, and multi-layer invalidation strategies that keep the UI responsive while handling datasets that would crash most web apps.
Build interactive visualizations for time-series telemetry, FFT frequency analysis, geographic mapping, and scatter plots, and many more, each with distinct performance profiles and correctness constraints. When your users are debugging flight hardware, a rendering inaccuracy is a mission-critical problem, not a cosmetic one.
Solve performance problems that frameworks can't: bypassing React's render cycle for 60fps interactions, coordinating worker thread pools, managing memory across large binary buffers, and making architectural decisions about what belongs on the main thread vs. off it.
Architect composable UI systems for technical users who need full data fidelity. Not simplified dashboards, but tools that expose the real complexity of hardware telemetry with zeptosecond level timestamp precision - Work across the stack boundary. Collaborate with backend engineers on API design, binary serialization formats, and query semantics for structured data endpoints.
The Skillset You'll Bring:
7+ years building software for the web, with meaningful experience pushing browsers beyond their comfort zone, whether that's performance optimization, binary data processing, GPU rendering, multi-threaded architectures, or something else that required understanding the platform deeply
Strong TypeScript skills and comfort working in a React codebase, but your value isn't in knowing React APIs. It's in knowing when React is the wrong tool for the job and what to reach for instead
Systems-level intuition: you think about memory layout, thread coordination, caching strategies, and data serialization formats, not just component hierarchies
Experience building for correctness under constraint. You've worked on software where bugs have real consequences, or you've built systems where data fidelity and performance couldn't be traded off against each other
Bonus Points:
Experience with GPU-accelerated rendering in the browser (WebGL, WebGPU, Canvas 2D optimizations) or technical visualization at scale (D3, ECharts, custom renderers)
Hands-on work with binary data formats (Arrow, Parquet, protobuf, FlatBuffers) or columnar data processing
Background in Web Workers, SharedArrayBuffer, OPFS, or other browser threading/storage APIs - Experience in domains where data correctness is non-negotiable: aerospace, scientific computing, medical devices, financial systems, or similar
Projects where you had to build infrastructure that didn't exist yet, like custom caching layers, data processing pipelines, rendering engines, or developer tools
Engineering At SIFT:
You'll have the opportunity to help evolve and scale our platform because we're still in the early stages of building the product. Relevant technologies include:
Web frontend & backend: React, TypeScript, Redux, Tailwind, WebAssembly, D3.js, WebGL, and Go
Infrastructure: GitHub Actions, AWS, Azure, GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform
Location:
Sift's headquarters is in Marina Del Rey, CA (Next to LAX). We collaborate in person twice a week-on Mondays and Thursdays-and come together for a full week every two months. We are open to relocating candidates to LA or working from our San Francisco office for the right candidate.
Salary range: $200,000 - $250,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits.
Eligibility:
U.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual such as an asylee or refugee in compliance with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) regulations.
