Lead Software Engineer

Description

Career Area:

Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other. We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

Role Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Software Engineer – UI Engineering to lead the design, development, and evolution of enterprise-scale front-end applications, shared UI frameworks, component libraries, and platform capabilities.

This role serves as a senior technical leader within the Experience Engineering organization and is responsible for driving engineering excellence, delivering scalable and high-performance user experiences, and enabling adoption of reusable UI platforms across multiple product teams.

The ideal candidate is a highly hands-on engineer with deep expertise in React, TypeScript, Web Components, application architecture, and modern front-end engineering practices. This role will partner closely with UI Architects, Engineering Managers, Product Owners, UX teams, and Platform Engineering teams to deliver robust, scalable, and maintainable front-end solutions.

What You'll Do

Technical Leadership & Solution Design

• Lead the technical design and implementation of complex front-end solutions across multiple applications and teams.
• Translate architectural vision and standards into scalable, maintainable engineering solutions.
• Drive technical decision-making around frameworks, libraries, patterns, and platform capabilities.
• Review and validate technical designs, architecture proposals, and implementation approaches.
• Serve as a technical escalation point for complex engineering challenges.
• Champion engineering best practices, reusable patterns, and platform-first development approaches.
• Provide leadership during technical planning, estimation, and roadmap discussions.

Front-End Application Development

• Design, develop, and maintain enterprise-grade web applications using React, Next.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, Web Components, HTML5, and CSS.
• Build highly responsive, accessible, scalable, and performant user experiences.
• Develop reusable features and shared capabilities aligned with design system standards.
• Integrate applications with REST APIs, and Backend-for-Frontend (BFF) layers.
• Drive modernization initiatives, framework upgrades, and technical debt reduction efforts.
• Support mission-critical releases and production deployments.

UI Platform, Framework & Component Engineering

• Lead development and enhancement of reusable UI frameworks, component libraries, and shared engineering capabilities.
• Design and implement scalable component architectures and reusable patterns.
• Drive adoption of shared frameworks and libraries across product teams.
• Contribute to framework governance, versioning strategies, and release management processes.
• Improve developer experience through tooling, documentation, templates, and engineering accelerators.
• Partner with architects to evolve front-end platform capabilities and technical standards.

Design Systems & Experience Engineering

• Lead implementation of design-system-driven front-end development practices.
• Collaborate closely with UX and Design teams to transform designs into reusable production-ready components.
• Ensure consistency through design tokens, theming, component standards, and accessibility requirements.
• Support implementation of responsive and adaptive experiences across devices and platforms.
• Promote adoption of design systems across development teams.

Engineering Excellence & Quality

• Establish and promote high standards for code quality, maintainability, scalability, and testability.
• Drive implementation of automated quality practices including:
  • Unit Testing
  • Integration Testing
  • End-to-End Testing
  • Visual Regression Testing
• Lead code reviews and architectural reviews across teams.
• Ensure adherence to:
  • SonarQube quality standards
  • Secure coding practices
  • Open-source governance policies (FOSSA or equivalent)
• Identify and address technical debt while continuously improving engineering quality.

Performance, Security & Reliability

• Optimize applications and framework components for:
  • Core Web Vitals
  • Accessibility Compliance
  • Rendering Efficiency
  • Application Scalability
  • Bundle Size Optimization
• Establish performance monitoring and remediation strategies.
• Partner with architects and platform teams to improve reliability and scalability.
• Lead root-cause analysis and resolution of critical production issues.
• Drive secure development practices and vulnerability remediation activities.

DevOps & Continuous Delivery

• Drive adoption of CI/CD best practices across development teams.
• Contribute to pipeline automation, release processes, and deployment strategies.
• Implement and promote:
  • Trunk-Based Development
  • Feature Flags
  • Progressive Delivery
  • Automated Quality Gates
• Support release planning, production readiness, and deployment validation.

AI-Assisted Engineering & Innovation

• Leverage AI-powered engineering tools to improve developer productivity and accelerate delivery.
• Contribute to initiatives involving:
  • AI-Assisted Development
  • Code Generation
  • Developer Productivity Platforms
  • Design-to-Code Automation
  • Knowledge-Driven Engineering Workflows
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend improvements to engineering practices and developer experience.

Mentorship & Team Enablement

• Mentor and coach Senior Software Engineers and Software Engineers.
• Lead technical communities of practice, architecture discussions, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
• Guide teams in adopting engineering standards, reusable patterns, and platform capabilities.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, continuous learning, and technical excellence.
• Influence technical direction without direct people-management responsibilities.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with:
  • UI Architects
  • Engineering Managers
  • Product Owners
  • UX and Design Teams
  • Platform Engineering Teams
  • Cloud and DevOps Teams
• Support roadmap planning and technical strategy execution.
• Drive alignment across multiple engineering teams and stakeholders.
• Communicate technical trade-offs, risks, and recommendations effectively.

Qualifications

• 12–16 years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in front-end development.
• Proven experience leading large-scale front-end engineering initiatives and complex technical programs.
• Strong hands-on expertise in:
  • React
  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • Web Components
• Experience building reusable frameworks, component libraries, and design-system-driven applications.
• Experience developing scalable enterprise-grade web applications.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, design patterns, and distributed application design.
• Demonstrated technical leadership and mentoring experience.

Technical Competencies

Front-End Technologies

• React
• Next.js
• TypeScript
• JavaScript (ES6+)
• Web Components
• HTML5
• CSS3

Architecture & Platform Engineering

• Component-Based Architecture
• Design Systems
• UI Frameworks and Component Libraries
• State Management (Redux, Zustand, Context API)
• Micro-Frontends
• Module Federation
• Backend-for-Frontend (BFF) Patterns
• API Integration

Engineering Quality & Security

• SonarQube
• Unit Testing
• Integration Testing
• End-to-End Testing
• Secure Coding Practices
• FOSSA or Equivalent Governance Tools

DevOps & Automation

• Git and GitHub
• GitHub Actions
• Azure DevOps
• Jenkins
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Release Automation

Performance & Observability

• Core Web Vitals
• Lighthouse
• DataDog
• Grafana
• Sentry
• Real User Monitoring (RUM)
• Application Performance Monitoring

Nice to Have

• Experience with SSR/SSG/ISR using Next.js.
• Experience with Lit, Stencil, or other Web Component frameworks.
• Experience implementing Micro-Frontend platforms.
• Experience contributing to enterprise design systems.
• Familiarity with Azure or AWS cloud platforms.
• Exposure to AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, or equivalent.
• Experience with Storybook and component documentation platforms.
• Knowledge of mobile technologies such as React Native.

Success in This Role Looks Like

• Successful delivery of complex, business-critical front-end initiatives.
• Strong technical leadership across multiple engineering teams.
• Increased adoption of reusable UI frameworks and component libraries.
• Improved engineering quality, performance, and developer productivity.
• Effective mentoring and growth of engineering talent.
• Consistent alignment with architecture standards and engineering best practices.
• Tangible reduction in technical debt and improvement in platform scalability.
• Strong collaboration across architecture, engineering, product, and design organizations.

Posting Dates:

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants of any age are encouraged to apply

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