Senior / Staff Software Engineer, Frontend
About Utopai StudiosWe're building a cinematic AI storytelling experience that changes how stories get made. Our agentic platform lets creators go from idea to narrative video across formats, audiences, and platforms — fast. We're a small team that ships constantly, thinks from first principles, and believes the best creative tools haven't been built yet.The RoleWe're looking for a Senior / Staff Frontend Engineer who builds the interfaces creators actually live in. You'll own the web app end-to-end — the timeline, the canvas, the agent interactions, the moments where someone goes from a half-formed idea to a finished scene — and you'll ship them yourself.This isn't a role where frontend means styling someone else's API. You'll architect the client, shape the interaction model, work directly with our research and design teams, and turn agent capabilities into responsive, real-time creative tools.What You ValueEngineering craft. You sweat the details — render performance, state model, interaction latency, the feel of a drag. You have a high bar and it shows in everything you ship.Ship fast. You'd rather get something in front of users this week than architect it for a month. You know when to refactor and when to land it.AI-native. You're already using Claude Code, Cursor, or similar tools to extend what you can build. AI is part of your workflow, not a novelty.What You Bring5+ years of frontend experience, with at least some of it at the senior or staff levelDeep React expertise — hooks, suspense, concurrent rendering, the actual mental model, not just the API surfaceStrong TypeScript fundamentals and opinions about how to use the type system wellExperience architecting non-trivial web apps — state management, data fetching, real-time sync, performance at scaleA sharp eye for interaction detail — you can tell when something feels 50ms too slow and you know how to fix itExperience building rich, interactive surfaces (canvas, timeline, editor, or similar) is a strong plusMobile/React Native experience is a plusExperience with video, WebGL, WebGPU, or media pipelines is a plusBS in Computer Science or equivalent experience — we care more about what you've shipped than where you studied