First Engineer Jobs in Houston, TX (NOW HIRING)

In this role, you'll mentor the project team, share knowledge, and collaborate with the Solution Architect to determine project architecture. You'll lead in developing projects, promoting best programming practices, and have influence over developers. Lastly, you'll provide application support, develop and document applications, and maintain application documentation and configuration.

As a Tech Lead Software Engineer, you are a hands-on technical leader with end-to-end ownership of web architecture, delivery outcomes, and production reliability. You set technical direction, make and communicate clear architectural tradeoffs, and lead through influence - aligning engineers, product, backend, platform, security, and partners around durable, scalable web solutions.

You design, build, and operate customer-facing web platforms using Angular, TypeScript, NgRx, and Nx, applying modern front-end architecture, responsive design, accessibility, API integration, and secure development practices to improve reliability, usability, and developer velocity.

You accelerate delivery through AI and agentic-first engineering practices, establishing safe, repeatable workflows that improve throughput and quality while maintaining strong validation, security, accessibility, and governance. You raise the engineering bar by mentoring others, setting clear guardrails, and continuously improving the systems and practices your teams rely on.

Our mission is to empower our company, teammates, and customers through resilient, customer-centric technology. We leverage our technical expertise and deep business understanding to deliver impactful solutions.

Mindset
Ownership, customer obsession, growth mindset, think big - start small, bias for action, and relentless pursuit of engineering excellence.

Why Join Us
Impact: Build platforms used across the business; modernize critical systems, development agentic-first solutions.
Growth: Leadership development, career advancement, and cutting-edge tech adoption.
Culture: Inclusive, collaborative, and innovation-driven.
Career Paths: Multiple advancement opportunities available.

Technical Leadership
Set and communicate technical direction, aligning engineers around clear web platform priorities, architectural intent, and delivery outcomes
Lead through influence, partnering with product, backend, platform, security, and dependent teams to drive alignment without relying on positional authority
Serve as the primary front-end technical escalation point, resolving complex architecture, integration, performance, accessibility, security, and quality challenges while balancing speed and long-term sustainability
Raise the engineering bar, mentoring through design reviews, code reviews, shared standards, reusable patterns, and front-end architecture guidance
Model ownership and accountability, leading by example with a bias for action and end-to-end responsibility for the web platforms the team builds and operates

Modern Software Development
Own web architecture and technical decisions, defining Angular application structure, state management, shared libraries, component design systems, dependency management, and API integration patterns that scale and endure
Lead front-end platform modernization, improving legacy web applications through maintainable architecture, reusable components, better testability, performance improvements, and accessibility standards
Design and evolve state management and monorepo patterns, using NgRx and Nx to support clear separation of concerns, code reuse, scalable team workflows, and developer velocity
Shape API contract and integration direction, partnering with backend teams to align REST APIs, authentication flows, error handling, data contracts, and end-to-end user journeys
Establish architectural guardrails, using patterns, reference implementations, shared libraries, and lightweight reviews to enable autonomy with alignment
Make and revisit pragmatic tradeoffs, documenting decisions and adapting as user needs, performance constraints, security expectations, accessibility standards, or platform capabilities change

Agentic AI-First Engineering
Lead adoption of AI and agentic-first development practices, integrating AI into front-end coding, testing, reviews, documentation, refactoring, bug triage, and CI/CD workflows
Design governed, repeatable agentic workflows for multi-step web engineering tasks, with clear human-in-the-loop controls
Set standards for validating AI outputs, ensuring security, correctness, maintainability, accessibility, performance, and standards alignment
Measure and optimize impact, improving throughput, quality, and developer experience based on outcomes - not novelty
Enable responsible experimentation, empowering teams to innovate within defined guardrails and shared learnings

Quality, Delivery & Operations
Own production quality and reliability, ensuring web platforms meet clear expectations for availability, performance, accessibility, security, and maintainability
Define and enforce quality mechanisms, establishing front-end testing strategies, CI quality gates, code review standards, and validation practices that make correctness the default
Operate what you build, taking end-to-end responsibility from development through deployment, production readiness, incident remediation, and continuous improvement
Lead operational excellence, defining front-end observability, performance monitoring, actionable alerts, and reliability practices to proactively manage customer-facing web experiences
Ensure predictable delivery, improving flow through automation, CI/CD maturity, reusable patterns, and reduced operational friction
Embed security and compliance by design, addressing secure front-end development, authentication, vulnerability remediation, regulatory expectations, and risk requirements without slowing delivery
Drive continuous improvement, using incidents, metrics, retrospectives, accessibility findings, and quality trends to strengthen systems, processes, and practices

Must-Have
8-10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with sustained ownership of customer-facing web platforms in production
Demonstrated technical leadership as a Tech Lead or senior IC - owning web architecture, influencing decisions, and serving as a technical escalation point
Strong front-end engineering experience designing and operating secure, scalable web applications using Angular and TypeScript
4+ years building and scaling modern Angular web applications, including hands-on experience with component architecture, routing, forms, performance, and maintainable application structure
Experience with NgRx and Nx, including scalable state management, monorepo patterns, shared libraries, and clear separation of concerns
Strong understanding of customer-facing web experience standards, including responsive design, accessibility/WCAG, usability, browser performance, and secure front-end development
Experience collaborating on API contracts and integration patterns, including REST APIs, authentication flows, error handling, and end-to-end user flows
Build-it / run-it ownership mindset, with experience supporting web applications in production, improving production readiness, and driving incident remediation
Strong quality discipline, including test strategy for unit, integration, and end-to-end testing, CI/CD quality gates, and rigorous code review practices
Proven ability to collaborate across teams, working effectively with product, backend, platform, security, design, and dependent engineering groups
Excellent technical communication skills, able to clearly document and explain architectural decisions, tradeoffs, standards, and implementation guidance

Nice-to-Have
Experience modernizing legacy front-end systems, including refactoring strategies, design system adoption, performance improvements, and incremental migration approaches
Experience building shared front-end platforms, including component libraries, design systems, reusable patterns, and monorepo-based development
Experience with AI-assisted or agentic development tools, and familiarity with defining guardrails and validation practices
Experience with containerization, front-end deployment patterns, or cloud delivery models, such as Docker, AWS, or related platform services
Experience with authentication and authorization patterns, including Okta, OIDC, and secure user session flows
Experience with observability and performance tooling, including browser performance monitoring, actionable alerts, and reliability practices for web platforms
Experience remediating security and code quality findings, using tools such as SonarQube, Checkmarx, or similar secure development platforms
Familiarity with API gateways and integration patterns, such as Kong, Apigee, or similar enterprise integration platforms
Experience operating in regulated environments, with awareness of PCI, SOX, accessibility expectations, or similar requirements