As our first dedicated Frontend Engineer, you will be joining a team of world-class makers to play a pivotal role in shaping our product's technical foundation and user experience. We are seeking a passionate, highly creative, and design-driven product engineer who thrives in startup mode, excels at building apps from scratch, and is dedicated to building visually stunning, high-quality products in web and mobile.
This role requires expertise in both mobile and frontend app development, and offers the opportunity to lead the development of our web apps and games, from concept through launch, iteration and scaling. The ideal candidate for this role loves shipping new features to users fast, has an excellent eye for design and visual quality while not being afraid to get scrappy, and has a deep passion for beautiful, interactive consumer apps and web games. We believe the best frontend developers breathe both Figma and JS and love mocking up designs for their own projects and bringing them to life at the speed of code.
What You'll Do
- Design, build, and maintain efficient, reusable, and reliable frontend code.
- Work closely with the multidisciplinary team and the growing engineering team to ideate, strategize, and iterate on web app features and web game functionalities.
- Develop and enforce coding standards and best practices, including robust testing.
- Optimize application performance for speed and scalability, ensuring seamless experiences across devices.
- Develop and maintain documentation for codebases, workflows, and processes to facilitate collaboration and future development.
- Experiment with and implement innovative solutions through a user-centric design approach.
- Take ownership of the end-to-end development lifecycle, from initial concept and prototyping to deployment and post-launch support.
- Stay up-to-date with emerging trends and technologies in the web and mobile industries, adapting and innovating as needed.
What We're Looking For
- 4-6+ years of hands-on experience as a Product Engineer or Frontend Developer, with a proven track record of shipping high-quality consumer-facing apps.
- An entrepreneurial, hacker/maker mindset, with previous B2C startup or web game startup experience, particularly in high-growth environments where you’ve had to adapt and scale quickly from 0 to 1 while wearing multiple hats.
- Strong proficiency in modern programming languages and frameworks (e.g. JavaScript, TypeScript, React, React Native, Node.js, etc.).
- Deep familiarity with modern mobile development using both web and native technologies, and a track record of shipping mobile apps in React Native.
- A robust portfolio of projects demonstrating your skills in full-stack development and your ability to work across both frontend and backend (with emphasis on user-facing experiences).
- Passion for user-centric design, product innovation, and creating meaningful experiences that resonate with users.
- A passion for all phases of software development—from ideation and design through to deployment and optimization.
Awesome if You Also Have
- Previous experience as a Founding Engineer or early member of a top consumer startup.
- Experience with cloud platforms, databases, API integrations, and third-party apps, and strong familiarity with the latest frameworks and technologies used in building scalable, engaging applications.
- Experience shipping web games or working on apps in the gaming industry, with a track record of projects related to web or mobile games that cater to both gamers and non-gamers.
- Personal passion for strategy games, puzzle games, roguelites, turn-based games, daily games, chess, or chess-like games.
- World-class ability to embrace AI in development only where and when it’s needed, while deeply valuing your craft and taking pride in the work you’re shipping to the world.
- BS in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, or equivalent from a top-tier university (optional).
What We Offer
- Competitive salary and generous equity package.
- Great remote-friendly office space with the best of what tech and gaming have to offer.
- Joining the early team of a breakout startup with massive potential to directly shape the company’s direction with your work.
- Being part of a rocketship funded by the world’s best investors in the field. Nuff said.
- Professional development and opportunities to grow within the company.
- Creative and entrepreneurial working environment where you’re encouraged to think out of the box and bring new ideas to life.
- Yearly personal development stipend to use however you see fit (so you can farm proper stats other than your ELO).
- Yearly personal gaming equipment stipend + yearly Discord Nitro upgrades (to finally git gud at all those games you keep buying).
- Unlimited Paid Time Off.
- 100% coverage for top-tier health insurance.
Location
We’re ideally looking for teammates in Los Angeles or San Francisco with a preference for hybrid work, but all California-based or US remote folks are encouraged to apply.
How to Apply
If you’re excited about building the next big thing in gaming and have a deep passion for creating memorable experiences, we’d love to hear from you. Shoot us a note with your resume and LinkedIn profile to join us on this exciting journey!
Echo Chess is proud to celebrate diversity and we’re committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
We are a venture-backed startup on a mission to redefine puzzle and strategy games for the modern era. We’re building strategy games that generate themselves and are here to push the boundaries of what’s possible in gaming. We’re gamers, engineers, and consumer apps veterans, and we’re backed by the best investors in tech, games, and AI, including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Patron Fund, Marc Merrill (Founder of Riot Games), Mark Pincus (Founder of Zynga), Eric Wu (Founder of Opendoor), Roblox’s Head of AI, the founders of Guild Wars and PlayFab, South Park Commons, and many more.
History has shown us that the most revolutionary products and timeless categories in both tech and games always start as bold, under-appreciated or misunderstood ideas. We’re bringing together the world’s best minds in engineering, games, and AI, who are ready to take on this challenge.
Our first game, Echo Chess, has already proven the widespread potential of this vision, with a highly passionate player base validating the appeal of AI-powered puzzle and strategy games. In just a matter of months, our player base has already spent over a whole decade of playtime enjoying the perfected easy-to-learn, hard-to-master, elements of the world’s best strategy games. But this is still Day 0 on our journey of building a generational company and genre-defining products that stand the test of time.
We’re a small, collaborative team, and we value ownership, speed, impact, and passion for our craft. Everyone here is a builder, and we love shipping real products that people around the world love to use every day. If you’re excited to shape the future of gaming, come join us on this mission to build your life’s work with us.
In Echo Chess, you are what you eat. Can you clear the board?