Senior Software Engineer
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Auckland CBD, Auckland
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 5+ years of experience working with modern frontend technologies and patterns, with a focus on building and maintaining real-world applications (React, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, Tailwind, etc.).
- Comfortable working in a cross-functional agile team, collaborating effectively with product, design, and engineering.
- Writes clean, maintainable, well-structured code with an understanding of component design and frontend architecture.
- Able to own complex, ambiguous projects end to end, leading other engineers where needed, open to learning and willing to share your own experience with the team.
- Hands-on experience using AI coding agents (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or similar) in day-to-day professional work, with a clear view of their strengths and failure modes.
- Experience writing automated tests (unit, integration, or end-to-end) using tools such as Jest, React Testing Library, or Playwright.
- Solid debugging skills within the frontend stack (developer tools, React DevTools, network debugging).
- Clear communication skills, with the ability to adapt for different technical audiences.
Nice to have
- Experience working with Electron.
- Experience working with CI pipelines (e.g. GitHub Actions).
- Experience with React meta-frameworks like Next.js.
- Experience building agentic workflows or tooling, such as MCP servers, custom agents, evals or AI-assisted CI checks.
- Experience designing UI for AI features, including streaming, uncertainty, user override and undo.
- Experience working with image or binary data in web applications.
- A keen interest in photography or the creative arts.
Full description
About Narrative
Narrative is one of NZ’s fastest growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. We build products that cater to a market of millions of professional photographers worldwide, working to significantly reduce their processing time by supporting a better daily workflow with AI powered tools. Our AI-powered tools help professional photographers from more than 160 countries improve their photo selection and photo editing workflows, significantly increasing their productivity. With the backing of top-tier Venture Capitalists – including Founders Fund – and a team of exceptionally talented staff, we are committed to driving innovation in this space.
See https://narrative.so/careers for more info about Narrative and our culture.
Why you'll love working here
We're committed to building products for professional photographers who work with people from all genders, ethnicities, racial and religious backgrounds. We think it’s important that our team reflects the same diverse audience. We're actively working to grow a diverse team and offer:
- Flexible and remote working options
- 1 month paid parental leave in addition to government leave
- 30 hours a week for up to 6 months on full pay following return from parental leave (for both birthing and non-birthing parents)
- Extended sick leave to support our team to get through the many things life can throw your way.
- Based in our office on Karangahape Road in Auckland, New Zealand, with the option to work remotely for three days a week. We find it’s important to have time for face-to-face communication, while also allowing some days to work from home, if one wants.
- Competitive salary commensurate with skills and experience, a 6 monthly review cycle, plus participation in a generous employee share option scheme.
About the Data Stack
Frontend development at Narrative is unique. You won't just be implementing UI and UX components; you'll be solving deep technical challenges at the intersection of performance, usability, and AI. You will be responsible for our Electron app, built with React, TypeScript, and NodeJS, which has access to the underlying OS. We use Canvas2D for image rendering and transformations, while Select's brain is a speedy daemon called Maxwell written in Rust that handles all the heavy lifting including image processing and ML analysis. Select operates in a multi-process environment, whether that's NodeJS processes, web workers, or Rust processes, which comes with its own set of considerations and concerns.
You’ll be dealing with problems not faced by traditional web apps. We are competing against native apps written in C++ using classic web technologies; a tall order for sure.