Full-Stack Software Engineer - Frontend Focus

About xFoundry

xFoundry is committed to fostering multidisciplinary collaboration, creativity, and actionable solutions to global challenges. It empowers students to become agents of change, enabling them to tackle complex problems and make a tangible impact on the world. Located within the E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory and connected to the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech), xFoundry brings together students, mentors, operators, university partners, and industry leaders to develop venture-ready solutions addressing 21st-century Grand Challenges in areas such as energy, environment, security, and human health.

The opportunity

Mtech is seeking a frontend-focused full-stack software engineer to contribute to the development of xFoundry's venture development platform and emerging AI-enabled workspaces. This role involves building product surfaces where students, mentors, university partners, and operators manage venture-building workflows, interact with AI-assisted tools, review structured data, track activity, and utilize persistent digital workspaces. Ideal candidates possess both frontend craftsmanship and full-stack judgment, ensuring polished interfaces that handle various data states and user interactions.

What you'll do

• 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
• Create 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
• 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
• 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.

Questions about the role or application process

If you have questions about the role or application process, please direct them 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.