UX Engineer

➔ All jobs

➔ Jobs at Shorthand

➔ Apply for this job

The Opportunity

Shorthand is a growing company that provides a digital publishing platform to many of the world’s best-known publishers, brands, not-for-profits, and universities. With customers on every continent (except Antarctica!), there’s never been a more exciting time to join Shorthand.  

We tend to do things a little differently at Shorthand. For one thing, we’re a small, fully remote team distributed around the world and have been for over 4 years, meaning we have established systems and processes in place. We welcome applicants from Australia and the Asia Pacific region for this role, as long as you are able to work during the AEST time zone (Brisbane).

The Role

The mission of Shorthand is to create a beautifully informed world. In order to do that, we need to ship tools that make it easy to create immersive reading experiences for the web because it will otherwise be unaffordable and painfully cumbersome for organisations to produce such content. 

 Our UX Engineer role is a big part of the Shorthand magic. As a UX Engineer at Shorthand you will own the implementation of the user experience of our product. Bridging the gap between design and engineering, you will bring creativity and pragmatism in order to deliver a delightful and accessible experience for our customers. 

You’ll know you’ve been successful in this role when there is widespread adoption of the design system components within the Engineering team, and externally via positive customer feedback and improved usage metrics.

The successful candidate will join our Engineering Team, working very closely with the Design team, and report to the Director of Story Engineering. 

We are looking for someone who:

• Is a creative customer-focused problem solver and always willing to go that extra mile.

• Is whip-smart, can learn fast, prioritise competing demands, and stay calm under pressure.

• Is a proactive self-starter who is resourceful finding solutions to any challenge. 

• Is a supportive team player who loves collaborating and helping others achieve their goals.

• Is interested in storytelling, creative writing, web design or a related field. (We will be asking you to write your own Shorthand story as part of the recruitment process!) 

• Has excellent written and face-to-face communication skills, and can effectively discuss technical challenges and opportunities for recommendations.

• Considers themselves to be a developer who primarily focuses on the interface and user experience aspects of front-end development, such as design implementation.

• Preferably has experience collaborating with diverse, geographically-dispersed teams and working remotely.

Core Responsibilities:

• Lead the implementation and maintenance of our design system.

• Be the technical lead in user experience within the Engineering team.

• Collaborate with the design and engineering teams to deliver a consistent, delightful and accessible user experience.

• Collaborate on the ideation of new features.

• Create working prototypes of new features that can be tested with users.

• Participate in user testing.

• Conduct code reviews and mentor others on best practices in front-end implementation and accessibility.

Experience and Qualifications:

• A minimum of 2 years in a similar role, demonstrable via a portfolio or similar examples of your work.

• Strong foundational skills in JavaScript, HTML and particularly, CSS (along with experience or interest in TypeScript and React or equivalent).

• Demonstrated experience using CI/CD processes (E.g. Gitflow in CircleCI, Jenkins or similar).

• Is experienced in writing tests and using test automation tools (Cypress, Playwright, Jest, React Testing Library, Applitools preferably).

• Demonstrated experience implementing interfaces from Figma (or equivalent) to production.

• Demonstrated experience building rapid prototypes in code that can be tested with users. 

• Deep understanding of common interaction patterns.

• Demonstrated experience delivering UI that balances delight and performance.

• Demonstrated experience with accessibility and cross-browser support.

• Experience with UI animation techniques.

• University qualification in computer science or a closely related field, or equivalent career experience preferred.

Compensation and Benefits:

• Competitive salary.

• Equity options.

• Opportunity to work in a fast-paced, high growth SaaS company.

• Remote working full-time, with allowance for co-working space if required.

• Unlimited annual leave.

• Allowance for setting up your home office.

• Health and Wellness fund to support a healthy lifestyle.