Senior Full-Stack Engineer - Frontend Design

Company: The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Location: Seattle
Posted on: June 1, 2025

Job Description:

Persons in these roles are expected to spend part of their time on-site in our Seattle offices and may occasionally work remotely from their home in the Greater Seattle area. On-site requirements vary based on position and team. If you have questions about Hybrid work arrangements for this role, please ask your recruiter.
Our base salary range is $126,000 - $189,000, and in addition we have generous bonus plans to provide a competitive compensation package.
Who You Are:
We're looking for senior full-stack engineers who lean front-end and enjoy the ambiguity, speed, and ownership typical of small product teams. In this role, you'll work across surfaces - from user-facing web apps to internal design systems - with a focus on delivering high-quality interfaces that support a range of Ai2 initiatives.
You'll work closely with engineers, researchers, designers, and leadership to understand needs, define solutions, and execute. We value pragmatism and collaboration over rigid process, and we expect engineers to help define what gets built - not just how.
This role is ideal for someone who wants to:

• 
  
• Deliver polished, user-centered software at a rapid pace.
  
• Shape product direction and collaborate across disciplines.
  
• Operate with autonomy and responsibility in a small, high-leverage team.
  
  We support your success with:
  
  • 
    
  • Continuous learning - including conference budgets, course reimbursements, and regular knowledge sharing.
    
  • Modern tooling - CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and production monitoring.
    
  • 100% employer-paid premiums for medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their dependents.
    
  • Retirement plan with generous employer match.
    
  • Paid time off including vacation, sick leave, and holidays.
    
  • Parental leave.
    
  • And much more.
    
    The ideal candidate is curious, reliable, and collaborative, with the ability to thrive in an environment that moves quickly and values autonomy.
    You're someone who:
    
    • 
      
    • Enjoys exploring new ideas and product directions, even when things aren't fully defined. You're comfortable jumping into ambiguity, prototyping early, and iterating with others.
      
    • Takes ownership of your work and follows through. You hold a high bar for quality, know when to generalize and when to move fast, and care about building things that last.
      
    • Communicates clearly and works well across disciplines. You speak up when needed but also know when to listen. You're a thoughtful partner in discussions - not someone trying to win the room.
      
    • Leads with empathy and builds strong relationships. You collaborate with humility, support your teammates, and take pride in helping others succeed - whether it's mentoring, code review, or pairing.
      
    • Stays grounded in fast-moving contexts. You handle shifting priorities and incomplete information with calm focus, and you're good at making steady progress even when not everything is figured out yet.
      
      This isn't a role for someone who needs tight direction - it's a good fit for builders who want to help define the work, not just execute it.
      Who We Are:
      You'll join a small, highly effective team of engineers building user-facing software for researchers, product users, and the broader AI community. We ship fast, partner closely with product and design, and take pride in delivering tools that are secure, accessible, and user-centered.
      Our team owns all key parts of the Ai2 web presence - including our model playground, demos, websites, and an Ai2 component library.
      We're looking to hire a senior software engineer to help us expand these efforts. You'll thrive here if you're startup-minded and enjoy shaping product direction, collaborating across roles, and building well-crafted software in an iterative environment where not everything is decided for you upfront.
      You'll play a key role in shaping how cutting-edge research reaches the world - from prototyping new ideas to refining user experience in production tools.
      Your Next Challenge:
      The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following:
      
      • 
        
      • Design, build, and maintain web applications using React and TypeScript.
        
      • Collaborate across functions to gather requirements, propose solutions, and ship high-impact features.
        
      • Contribute to a wide range of projects: public-facing apps, research demos, and our component library.
        
      • Identify when to generalize for reuse vs. move quickly with purpose-built code.
        
      • Ensure software is secure, accessible, and performant.
        
      • Navigate ambiguity and shifting priorities while maintaining quality and velocity.
        
      • Build intuitive, user-centered products with strong empathy for end users.
        
      • Advocate for accessibility, testing, and sustainable engineering practices.
        
      • Participate in and lead code reviews, design discussions, and architectural decisions.
        
      • Demonstrate curiosity, pragmatism, and shared ownership to help shape team culture.
        
      • Help build a productive, ownership-driven engineering culture.
        
        What Success Looks Like (First 6 Months):
        
        • 
          
        • Ship meaningful features across multiple user-facing surfaces.
          
        • Contribute to a wide range of projects, including public-facing apps, research demos, and our internal component library - helping define, implement, and evolve reusable, accessible UI components in collaboration with design.
          
        • Build strong relationships with product, design, and research partners.
          
        • Propose and lead an improvement to our tooling, process, or product.
          
          What You'll Need:
          Required Qualifications:
          
          • 
            
          • 7+ years of software engineering experience, including building and shipping web applications.
            
          • Strong proficiency with HTML, React, TypeScript, CSS and modern front-end architectures.
            
          • Strong proficiency with React, TypeScript, and CSS - including experience with modern frontend architectures like Next.js, utility-first CSS frameworks like PandaCSS or Tailwind.
            
          • Comfortable working across the stack and diving into Python back-end code as needed.
            
          • Experience building and integrating with back-end services, APIs (including GraphQL), and data pipelines using FastAPI, Flask, or Node.js.
            
          • Ability to reason across the stack - from browser behavior and UI state to server-side logic and data modeling.
            
          • A basic understanding of UNIX development tools like git and bash.
            
          • Demonstrated success delivering infast-paced, ambiguous environments (e.g., startups, early product teams).
            
          • Strong collaboration skills and experience working effectively across roles.
            
          • Ability tooperate independently: gather requirements, scope work, and deliver with minimal oversight.
            
          • Experience participating inproduct discovery or roadmap planning.
            
          • Comfortable using a variety of design applications (e.g.,Figma, Adobe Creative Suite).
            
          • Capable of producing web-optimized image and media assets.
            
          • Advanced technical ability withSVG production and manipulation.
            
          • Able to assess and ensure thedesign fidelity of their own work.
            
            Preferred Qualifications:
            
            • 
              
            • Familiarity with Next.js, DatoCMS, React Aria Components, Webpack, PandaCSS, and/or similar technologies.
              
            • Experience contributing to or maintaining a component library or design system.
              
            • Familiarity with tools like Storybook, design tokens, and component documentation practices.
              
            • Strong design instincts and the ability to build intuitive UIs without finalized mocks.
              
            • Experience supportingresearch demos or prototyping workflows.
              
              Physical Demands and Work Environment:
              The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.
              
              • 
                
              • Must be able to remain in a stationary position for long periods of time.
                
              • The ability to communicate information and ideas so others will understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations.
                
              • The ability to observe details at close range.
                
              • Can work under deadlines.
                
                A Little More About Ai2:
                Ai2 is a Seattle based non-profit AI research institute founded in 2014 by the late Paul Allen. Our mission is building breakthrough AI to solve the world's biggest problems. We develop foundational AI research and innovation to deliver real-world impact through large-scale open models, data, robotics, conservation, and beyond.
                In addition to Ai2's core mission, we also aim to contribute to humanity through our treatment of each member of the Ai2 Team. Some highlights are:
                
                • 
                  
                • We are a learning organization - because everything Ai2 does is ground-breaking, we are learning every day. Similarly, through weekly Ai2 Academy lectures, a wide variety of world-class AI experts as guest speakers, and our commitment to your personal on-going education, Ai2 is a place where you will have opportunities to continue learning alongside your coworkers.
                  
                • We value diversity - We seek to hire, support, and promote people from all genders, ethnicities, and all levels of experience regardless of age. We particularly encourage applications from women, non-binary individuals, people of color, members of the LGBTQA+ community, and people with disabilities of any kind.
                  
                • We value inclusion - We understand the value that people's individual experiences and perspectives can bring to an organization, and we are building a culture in which all voices are heard, respected and considered.
                  
                • We emphasize a healthy work/life balance - we believe our team members are happiest and most productive when their work/life balance is optimized. While we value powerful research results which drive our mission forward, we also value dinner with family, weekend time, and vacation time. We offer generous paid vacation and sick leave as well as family leave.
                  
                • We are collaborative and transparent - we consider ourselves a team, all moving with a common purpose. We are quick to cheer our successes, and even quicker to share and jointly problem solve our failures.
                  
                • We are in Seattle - and our office is on the water! We have mountains, we have lakes, we have four seasons, we bike to work, we have a vibrant theater scene, and we have so much else. We even have kayaks for you to paddle right outside our front door. We welcome interest from applicants from outside of the United States.
                  
                • We are friendly- chances are you will like every one of the 200+ (and growing) people who work here. We do.
                  
                  Ai2 is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. You may view the related compliance poster and the by clicking on their corresponding links.
                  This employer participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.
                  We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at
                  Benefits:
                  
                  • 
                    
                  • Team members and their families are covered by medical, dental, vision, basic life insurance, basic accidental death and dismemberment insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and an employee assistance program.
                    
                  • Team members are able to enroll in our voluntary life insurance program, our voluntary accidental death and dismemberment program, our health savings account plan, our healthcare reimbursement arrangement plan, and our health care and dependent care flexible spending account plans.
                    
                  • Team members are able to enroll in our company's 401k plan.
                    
                  • Team members will receive $125 per month to assist with commuting or internet expenses and will also receive $200 per month for fitness and wellbeing expenses.
                    
                  • Team members will also receive up to ten sick days per year, up to seven personal days per year, up to 20 vacation days per year and twelve paid holidays throughout the calendar year.
                    
                  • Team members will be able to receive annual bonuses and can participate in the long-term incentive plan.
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    Note: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the team members(s) of this position. Team members will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments. All duties and responsibilities are essential functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. To perform this job successfully, the team member(s) will possess the skills, aptitudes, and abilities to perform each duty proficiently. Some requirements may exclude individuals who pose a direct threat or significant risk to the health or safety of themselves or others. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an at will relationship.

Keywords: The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Redmond , Senior Full-Stack Engineer - Frontend Design, Engineering , Seattle, Washington