Senior React Front-End Developer

Job Title: Senior React Front-End Developer
Location: Chicago, IL; Raleigh, NC  preferred (Local Only)

Employment Type: Contract Long Term

Only W2

Remote collaboration with proximity to an office strongly preferred; in-person availability as needed

Position Summary

We are seeking React front-end developers to help build a modern, AI-enabled single-page application for Bankers Almanac, a KYC and global correspondent banking product used by major financial institutions. This is a ground-up modernization effort, not a lift-and-shift migration. The team is redesigning the data foundation, exposing new AI-ready APIs, and creating a new customer experience with workflow capabilities, automated reporting, and an AI-enabled chatbot.

The senior developer is the immediate priority and must be able to independently drive front-end delivery with limited direction. The mid-level developer may operate with more support and guidance.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

·         Build a new React-based single-page application from the ground up.

·         Translate product, UX, and architecture requirements into intuitive, scalable customer experiences.

·         Collaborate closely with product owners, UX professionals, architects, back-end engineers, and site reliability engineers.

·         Consume REST APIs to render data and integrate front-end experiences with a Java/Spring Boot back end; GraphQL may be considered.

·         Use specification-driven development and AI-assisted engineering practices to generate and refine production code.

·         Implement secure session management, role-based access, administrative hierarchies, and least-privilege controls for a multi-tenant platform.

·         Ensure front-end artifacts, configuration, and dependencies are clearly identified so SRE partners can incorporate them into Terraform-based deployment automation.

·         Contribute creative ideas and independently help shape usability, workflow, reporting, and AI-enabled features.

·         Build for cloud deployment, containerization, automation, scalability, and reliable operation on AWS.

Must-Have Qualifications

·         Strong hands-on React experience building modern front-end applications and single-page applications.

·         Experience building a new UI from the ground up or modernizing a legacy product into a new customer experience.

·         Ability to work with limited direction, particularly for the senior-level opening.

·         Solid front-end integration experience, including consuming REST APIs and rendering back-end data.

·         Working knowledge of back-end concepts; the role is approximately 80% front end and 20% back-end/API integration.

·         Experience with secure application design, including session management, user access controls, role or admin hierarchies, and least-privilege principles.

·         Experience working in a highly collaborative product environment across product, UX, architecture, back-end engineering, and SRE.

·         Comfort using AI coding tools and adopting structured, specification-driven development frameworks. Prior AIDLC experience is not required, but willingness to learn is essential.

·         Cloud-native development awareness, with exposure to containerized applications and automated deployment environments.

·         Clear communication, strong ownership, and the ability to move quickly in a greenfield delivery environment.

Preferred / Plus Qualifications

·         AWS experience, including familiarity with services such as EC2, S3, Lambda, ECS, and/or EKS.

·         Exposure to Azure.

·         Experience collaborating in Terraform-based infrastructure and deployment environments. Direct Terraform coding is not required.

·         Familiarity with Java and Spring Boot back-end environments.

·         GraphQL exposure.

·         Experience in banking, fintech, payments, financial services, KYC, due diligence, or correspondent banking.

·         Previous experience within RELX or a similar enterprise delivery environment.

·         Proximity to Chicago, Raleigh, or Alpharetta for periodic in-person collaboration.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal senior candidate is a product-minded React engineer who has successfully built or modernized a customer-facing application and can take ownership without waiting for detailed instructions. This person pairs strong UI engineering with enough API and back-end fluency to bring data-driven experiences to life. They are comfortable working across UX, product, architecture, engineering, and SRE, and they view security, access control, scalability, and AI-assisted delivery as core parts of the product rather than downstream concerns.

The ideal mid-level candidate has the same technical foundation but may need more guidance on architecture, prioritization, and independent delivery.

Product & Technical Environment

·         React single-page application

·         Java / Spring Boot back end

·         REST APIs; potential GraphQL

·         AWS-first cloud environment with some Azure exposure

·         Containerized deployment using ECS and/or EKS

·         Terraform-based build and deployment automation

·         AI-assisted and specification-driven development, including AIDLC-style practices

·         Multi-tenant security, session management, access controls, workflows, automated reporting, and an AI-enabled chatbot