Full-Stack Software Engineer - Frontend Focus

About xFoundry

At xFoundry, we are on a mission to tackle global challenges through multidisciplinary collaboration, creativity, and actionable solutions. We empower students to become agents of change, capable of addressing complex problems and making a tangible impact on the world.

xFoundry is part of the University of Maryland's innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, housed within the E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory and connected to the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech). Our work brings together students, mentors, operators, university partners, and industry leaders to build venture-ready solutions around major societal challenges.

The A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland is dedicated to accelerating entrepreneurship and translating research and learning into innovations that address 21st century Grand Challenges in areas such as energy, environment, security, and human health.

The opportunity

Mtech seeks a frontend-focused full-stack software engineer to help build the user-facing systems behind xFoundry's venture development platform and emerging AI-enabled workspaces.

This is not a generic website role. 

You will build product surfaces where students, mentors, university partners, and operators manage venture-building workflows, interact with AI-assisted tools, review structured data, track activity, and use persistent digital workspaces. 

The strongest candidates will bring both frontend craft and full-stack judgment: they know how a polished interface should behave when data is loading, a stream is partial, a request fails, an AI workflow asks for clarification, or a user needs to understand what a system is doing.

This role is ideal for someone who:

• Builds with Next.js, React, TypeScript, and modern component systems
• Has strong judgment around product UX, accessibility, interaction design, and frontend architecture
• Can model complex async UI states, including streaming responses, optimistic updates, interruptions, retries, and recoverable errors
• Understands typed API contracts using GraphQL, REST, or comparable patterns
• Is comfortable working with authentication, authorization-aware UI, and user- or tenant-scoped data
• Can collaborate with backend and AI engineers without needing every system detail abstracted away
• Is curious about AI-enabled software, agentic workflows, memory/retrieval systems, and the future of human-computer collaboration
• Wants to build software that supports entrepreneurship, student-led innovation, and university-driven venture development

What you'll do

You will help build the frontend for a platform that combines venture development workflows, authenticated product dashboards, AI-assisted workspaces, structured data tools, and real-time system feedback. This means working across product interfaces, data integration, AI-enabled experiences, and frontend quality on problems that require both craft and full-stack judgment.

Frontend Product Engineering

• Build high-quality application interfaces using Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and Radix/shadcn-style component primitives
• Translate product and operational requirements into clear workflows for dashboards, profiles, event and program workflows, forms, tables, review screens, community and collaboration surfaces, and administrative tools
• Design frontend states that make complex behavior understandable: loading, streaming, partial completion, background work, user interruption, validation errors, and service failures
• Build rich forms and structured workflows with validation, optimistic updates, and clear error recovery
• Improve usability, responsiveness, accessibility, and visual consistency across xFoundry product surfaces
• Contribute to a component architecture and design system primitives that keep the product consistent and composable as it grows

Full-Stack Data Flow and API Integration

• Integrate frontend workflows with backend APIs using GraphQL, REST, or comparable typed contract patterns
• Work with backend engineers to clarify request and response shapes, validation rules, permissions, error states, and data freshness expectations
• Use schema-first and type-safe patterns to reduce runtime surprises and keep frontend and backend behavior aligned
• Build client-side data flows using modern React patterns, server actions, SWR/React Query-style fetching, optimistic updates, and cache invalidation where appropriate
• Ensure application screens present data accurately, update predictably, and recover gracefully when services fail

AI-Enabled UX

• Build interfaces for AI-assisted workflows that are transparent, interruptible, and useful to real users
• Represent streaming output, tool activity, citations, generated files, clarification prompts, and task progress in ways that users can trust
• Build workspace-style UI for conversations, documents, files, generated outputs, and long-running workflows
• Collaborate with AI and backend engineers on the boundary between browser state, API streams, persisted thread and workflow state, and long-running tasks
• Help make advanced capabilities feel like product features rather than demos

Quality, Performance, and Maintainability

• Write maintainable TypeScript with clear component boundaries, accessible interactions, and predictable state management
• Use testing and verification practices such as Vitest, React Testing Library, Playwright, or comparable tools to protect user-facing behavior
• Build observability and operational surfaces that help staff and engineers understand system health and user impact
• Monitor performance and user experience across real workflows, not only isolated components
• Participate in code reviews, debugging, and technical planning with a focus on root-cause fixes and product impact

What we're looking for

Minimum qualifications

• Master's degree in a related field, or a bachelor's degree with 3 years of exceptional experience
• 3 years of professional experience

Required technical skills

• Strong JavaScript/TypeScript and React experience
• Experience building production applications with Next.js or comparable full-stack frontend frameworks
• Strong understanding of component architecture, state management, accessibility, responsive design, and frontend performance
• Experience integrating frontend applications with GraphQL, REST, or other API contract patterns
• Comfort working with authenticated user experiences, permissions-aware UI, and production debugging
• Ability to communicate clearly with designers, backend engineers, AI engineers, and product stakeholders

Strongly preferred experience

• Next.js App Router, React Server Components, server actions, and modern React data boundaries
• Tailwind CSS, Radix UI, shadcn-style component systems, or comparable design-system primitives
• Schema-first validation and type-safe data flows using tools such as Zod, GraphQL code generation, OpenAPI, or comparable approaches
• SWR, React Query, optimistic updates, cache invalidation, and resilient async state management
• Streaming UI, SSE/WebSocket-style event flows, AI SDKs, assistant-style interfaces, or long-running workflow UX
• Vitest, React Testing Library, Playwright, Cypress, or other frontend testing tools
• Sentry or comparable observability tooling
• Experience building tools for education, entrepreneurship, research, knowledge work, data-heavy operations, or AI-assisted workflows

Comparable experience with other modern frameworks is welcome, but our current frontend work is centered on the Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind, and API-driven product application ecosystem.

Working environment

This is sedentary work performed in a normal office environment. The role may require exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally, or a negligible amount of force frequently or constantly, to lift, carry, push, pull, or otherwise move objects. The role also requires the ability to attend meetings both on and off campus.

Why join xFoundry?

Build product interfaces for meaningful work: Your work will help students, mentors, and university partners move ambitious ideas toward real-world impact.

Work on the next generation of AI-enabled software: You will help shape interfaces where people collaborate with intelligent systems that can reason, use tools, operate on files, and support long-running work.

Own real product quality: This role is focused on the surfaces users touch every day, including speed, clarity, accessibility, trust, and recoverability.

Collaborate across the full stack: You will work closely with backend, AI, data, and product teammates while maintaining a clear frontend focus.

Competitive compensation: Salary range is $115,000 - $135,000 with regular faculty benefits.

To apply

Submit your resume or CV, cover letter, and list of references, along with a brief statement, one page maximum, addressing the following questions:

• Describe a complex frontend or full-stack product workflow you built where user experience, data/API integration, and reliability all mattered. What architecture, state management, and API decisions did you make?
• Tell us about a time you made a complicated interface easier to understand without hiding important operational states, edge cases, or errors. What changed for users or the team?
• If you were building a streaming AI-assisted workflow with partial responses, tool activity, user clarification, generated files, and recoverable errors, how would you think about the frontend state model and user experience?
• What excites you about building user-facing software that supports student-led entrepreneurship, applied AI, and university-driven venture development?

Questions about the role or application process can also be directed to mtech-human-resources@umd.edu.

The University of Maryland, College Park is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment.

The University of Maryland will not sponsor the successful candidate for work authorization in the United States now or in the future.