Front-end/Web Architect

As digital transformation reshapes daily work, organisations need dependable technology partners. BIT offers a structure with defined responsibilities to support the efficiency and effectiveness of IT activities and provide consistent business services while fostering a workplace where staff contributions are acknowledged and valued.

At the European Patent Office (EPO), we are undergoing a major transformation to build a DevOps practice, embed agile principles, adopt green technologies and use artificial intelligence. Our mission is to support innovation, competitiveness and economic growth across Europe. We take innovation seriously and are fully committed to our digital transformation.

Front-end/Web Architect

We are seeking highly motivated and experienced experts who can work independently and bring state‑of‑the‑art knowledge to our Engineering and Architecture team. The front‑end/web architect role combines strategic technological vision with hands‑on implementation in the front-end and web domain. You should be fully at home in a cloud‑native environment and able to leverage cloud platforms to advance the front-end domain. Sharing knowledge, learning new technologies and contributing to our ongoing transformation are essential to this role.

With us you will:

• shape the future of our front-end architecture by designing reference architectures, patterns and reusable implementations that will be adopted across the entire organisation
• act as the strategic technical leader for front-end/web technologies, identifying emerging tools, frameworks and approaches that accelerate delivery of SP2028 goals
• drive high-impact initiatives: collaborate with senior IT leadership, build proofs of concept, document reference architectures and work hands-on inside product teams to land these solutions in production
• be the guardian of technical excellence, ensuring product teams adopt best practices, modern standards and the EPO design system consistently and successfully
• provide expert, hands-on troubleshooting for complex performance, compatibility or architectural issues, when needed
• serve as the go-to technical authority on everything front end: performance engineering, security, library/framework decisions, CI/CD pipelines, progressive delivery, observability, browser support, UI/UX implementation, design-system governance and cloud-native patterns (OIDC, etc.)
• mentor and coach teams, conduct technical interviews and help raise the overall front-end skill level across the EPO
• be sent on temporary secondments to product teams when strategic or groundbreaking projects require your deep expertise

Apply if you have:

• state-of-the-art expertise in modern web engineering and architecture
• five or more years of technical leadership guiding development teams
• extensive end-to-end experience leading customer-facing (or large-scale internal) projects: migrations, greenfield builds and production roll‑outs
• full project life-cycle ownership, from initial architecture through long-term maintenance
• outstanding communication and presentation skills with an ability to explain complex technical topics clearly to engineers and senior stakeholders alike
• proven technical coaching, mentoring and analytical problem-solving under pressure
• strong ability to work independently across multiple strategic initiatives
• deep, current hands-on (production-level) expertise in:

• React and TypeScript (five or more years)
• modern build tooling (Vite, Webpack, Redux Ecosystem, etc.)
• advanced CSS/HTML, layout techniques and performance optimisation
• progressive delivery patterns (feature flags, canary releases)
• Front-end observability and OpenTelemetry (OTel)
• cloud-native front-end security (OIDC, token flows, CSP, etc.)

Additional nice-to-haves:

• cross-browser/device compatibility at scale
• Web Vitals and performance engineering
• designing and evolving large-scale corporate design systems
• public cloud platforms and modern CI/CD practices

Our minimum requirements for this post

• Diploma of completed studies at master's level or – in exceptional cases – equivalent professional experience
• Generally, an excellent knowledge (at least C1) of one official language (English, French and German) and ability to understand the other two; alternatively, excellent knowledge (at least C1) of at least one official language (in such cases, the willingness to learn the missing language(s) and to reach level B2 within a set time frame would be required)
• Citizenship of one of the member states of the European Patent Organisation

Why join us?
Be part of the EPO's transformation and enable innovation. Work with inspiring people from a variety of cultures. Develop yourself and take on an intellectual challenge.

What's in it for you?
A competitive salary. Family-friendly benefits. A good work-life balance. Generous flexibility options. Relocation benefits and various allowances. Contributory medical insurance and pension schemes. 30 days' leave per year. Free gym access. Social activities and clubs.

🖂 jobinfo@epo.org