Senior Front-end Software Engineer

Senior Front-end Software Engineer

Salary

$101,974.53 - $145,366.29 Annually

Location

Boston City Hall - 1 City Hall Sq

Job Type

Full-Time

Job Number

2026-00199

Department

Department of Innovation and Technology

Opening Date

10/27/2026

Closing Date

12/29/2026 11:59 PM Eastern

• Description
• Benefits
• Questions

Overview

Millions of people interact with the City of Boston digitally each year to do everything from finding information on City services to paying a parking ticket. On the Digital Services team, we believe these experiences should be easy to navigate, dignified, and even delightful. The Digital Services team within DoIT is focused on partnering with City departments to improve service delivery across the City. We're a cross-functional team with a mission to improve the user experience of existing digital services, better engage and communicate with our residents, and build new systems to improve how the City delivers services online.

The Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) provides and maintains mission-critical technologies for the City's more than 18,000 employees and the hundreds of thousands of constituents they serve.

As a front-end engineer, you will work on small teams to build scalable infrastructure for the City - designing, implementing, and delivering services that City residents depend on. You care deeply about working on technology that improves people's lives, but don't think technology is always the answer. You are passionate about building large-scale systems that are inclusive, well-designed, fast, scalable, and secure, and you'll help set high standards for our teams in terms of simplicity, empathy, and accessibility.

The full-stack engineer in this role will be responsible for developing end-to-end systems, modernizing existing legacy enterprise platforms to improve the City department's public-facing processes and experiences which will enable users to have more access to the programs and services they need, in real-time, in a more user-friendly and uncomplicated way. This individual will be involved in everything, from strategy and planning through post-production testing and support.

Responsibilities

• Works with fellow engineers to design, review, and build well-crafted software.
• Collaborates with stakeholders (technical and non-technical) to understand their needs, clarify possible options, make technical recommendations, and architect, implement, and deploy new systems and improvements to existing systems.
• Works in an agile manner to efficiently ship new features that meet user needs.
• Creates tools and processes to automate our development, testing, and production workflows.
• Acts as a technical leader in the development of high-quality, well-tested, documented, CI/CD-enabled, and high-performance software solutions.
• Writes and reviews technical documentation, including architecture diagrams, and performs code reviews.
• Works closely with product designers, product managers, and engineers to implement solutions for end-user and business needs.
• Supports production systems and investigates issues when they occur.
• Upholds and continuously improves the team's coding standards and development workflows.
• Pursues personal growth by maintaining an awareness of the state of technology, engineering techniques, and best practices.
• Contributes to and advances "best practices" within the team and our organization.
• Supports project planning, including requirements gathering, design, scoping, and estimates for upcoming work.
• Manages your own time and works well both independently and as part of a team.
• Provides exemplary peer reviews, enabling continuous learning and improvement opportunities for other team members.
• Participates in daily standups and other agile (Scrum or Kanban) routines.
• Performs related work as required.

Minimum Entrance Qualifications

• At least five (5) years of experience working in an agile, multidisciplinary team environment, preferably designing and building medium- to large-scale web applications on Cloud Platforms.
• At least five (5) years of hands-on professional work experience building web applications and systems using modern JavaScript with React.
• Current and/or prior experience developing API endpoints.
• Experience with AWS and SQL databases.
• Experience mapping and driving systemic improvements within complex service environments.
• Understanding of OWASP and other secure development methodologies.
• Experience in languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Node.
• Experience with tools such as Fleet, SASS, Docker, Behat, GitHub, TravisCI, Acquia Hosting, and AWS Lambda.
• Experience with Drupal 9 is a plus.
• Understanding of web and mobile user interface design best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to design, build, and test semantic, accessible web applications.
• Tenacity to dive into problems and iterate in working code.
• Equal parts systems thinker and advocate for users.
• Highly resourceful, reliable, and detail-oriented.
• Ability to exercise good judgment and focus on detail as required by the job.

BOSTON RESIDENCY REQUIRED

Terms:

Union/Salary Plan/Grade: SENA/MM1-10

Hours per week: 35

The City of Boston is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We invite applications from all qualified individuals and do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other protected category.

At the City of Boston, we provide our employees with a wide array of benefits and resources that foster both their professional and personal development. Our goal is to make City government a place where everyone is empowered to make a positive impact for the communities in which we live, work, and play.

For full-time positions, employees may be eligible for the following benefits depending on the nature of their employment and applicable Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for the position. View the Collective Bargaining Agreements page to learn more.

Benefits Available to City Workers

• Retirement & Savings Opportunities: Membership in the Boston Retirement System (BRS), a benefit pension plan providing lifetime income to vested employees when they retire, along with deferred compensation options to help you build a secure future. Visit boston.gov/retirement to learn more.

• Health Insurance & Benefits: The City offers competitive medical, dental, and vision coverage, plus flexible spending (FSA), dependent care accounts, and life insurance for our employees. Visit boston.gov/insurance to learn more.

• Other Benefits: City employees enjoy a benefits package featuring paid time off and leave, subsidized transit (MBTA and Bluebikes), educational assistance, and employee wellness programs. Visit boston.gov/life-city-boston to learn more.

• Salary information: To view salary plans and understand how salaries work at the City of Boston, go to boston.gov/salary.

Part-time employees who are scheduled to work for 20 hours or more per week may also be eligible for benefits on a pro-rated basis. Please refer to the applicable Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to learn more about any benefits available for this position.

If you have any questions about the benefits offered for this position, please contact the Office of Human Resources at 617-635-3370 or ohr@boston.gov.

01

Thank you for your interest in the Sr Front-End Engineer role with the Boston Digital Service. Before we begin our formal interview process wed like to ask a few additional questions to get to know you a little bit. This questionnaire is meant to assess your eligibility, interests, and abilities as they relate to this position. We will use your responses and those from other applicants to determine which candidates are best suited to advance to the next round of the hiring process. It includes brief questions about your eligibility for this position and short answer questions about your interest and experience. We expect this questionnaire to take 30 minutes. If you have any questions, please reach out to Estelle.Sheriff@boston.gov Please enter email:

02

What is your full name? (Please make sure this matches what you entered in the formal application)

03

What is your preferred name?

04

What are your pronouns?

05

These are the neighborhoods of Boston. Anyone can apply for a job with the City of Boston, but city ordinances require that all employees be legal City residents by their first day of work. For more information on residency requirements, see here.

• Yes, I currently live inside Boston city limits
• No, but I am willing to move to a neighborhood inside the limits of the City of Boston before beginning employment
• No, and I am not planning to move (this is disqualifying)

06

Are you legally authorized to work in the United States? (All candidates must be eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship or restrictions.)

• Yes, without restrictions
• Yes, but I will eventually need an STEM extension of an OPT Authorization (we dont currently have e-verify, so this may not be possible))
• Yes, but I will at some point need sponsorship for an employment visa (this is, unfortunately, disqualifying)
• No (this is disqualifying)

07

If hired, when could you start?

08

The salary range for this position is set by a collective bargaining agreement and it is not possible to negotiate salaries above the maximum amount of the range. The salary range for this position is between $101,974 and $145,336, with the specific salary set at one of 9 steps, based on prior experience and qualifications. You can view the salary steps for this position at this this link - this position is a Grade 10.

• I am comfortable with the salary range for this position
• This salary range does not fit what I am looking for

09

Please do not use Generative AI in your preparation of responses to the questions in this section. The City of Boston has a generative AI policy for employees that guides using Generative AI at work, but for this purpose we want to hear directly from you. This role sits within Boston Digital Service. Youd be joining a small team that is responsible for creating and maintaining a variety of applications used by residents so that they can interact with the City of Boston. Youd be joining our small team as were maturing our processes and technologies. Youll be key contributor in determining how we build applications for year to come.

• Yes, I would
• No, this doesnt seem up my alley

10

How did you hear about this job?

• LinkedIn
• Public Sector Job Board
• From a friend or colleague
• Other

11

How many years of overall professional post-college work experience do you have? Please enter a number

12

How many years of professional post-college experience do you have in software development. Please enter a number

13

Why are you interested in the Sr. Font-End Engineer role with the City of Boston specifically? What about your background, education, skills and prior experience makes you a strong fit for this position? Please note experience in full-stack development or use of cloud platforms. (Max length: roughly 200 words)

14

Please describe your current use of AI tools. What are your preferred models, harnesses, and techniques? (Max length: roughly 300 words)

15

If you have a personal website or other online portfolio, you may provide the link here This is NOT required and applicants are not expected to have samples of work available

Required Question

Employer City of Boston (MA)

Address 1 City Hall Plaza, Room 612

Boston, Massachusetts, 02201

Phone 617-635-3370

Website https://www.boston.gov