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
