Senior Frontend Engineer

Who Are We

Founded in 2013, Smallpdf has been simplifying PDF management for millions globally. We've combined Swiss engineering with a deep understanding of our user's needs, leading us to join forces with Pdftools in 2022. Today, our diverse team of over 100 professionals from 34 nationalities operates across Zurich, Belgrade, and Barcelona. We're committed to making PDF and life just a bit easier for over a billion users in 24 languages.

About the role

As a Senior Frontend Engineer, and a product engineer at heart, you’ll help shape user experiences for millions of people, with real ownership from idea to production. You’ll be an active voice in product and design discussions, contributing not just how we build things, but what we build and why.

We’re not looking for someone who just picks up tickets and writes code - we really want someone who is keen to learn and work in a cross functional environment. You’ll help turn ideas into quick MVPs, run A/B tests or other validation techniques, and use what you learn to guide future decisions. We value pragmatic trade-offs and fast feedback over perfection.

Beyond your product team, you’ll contribute to our Frontend Guild, helping evolve shared standards and practices that keep our frontend codebase healthy, scalable and able to support our future product and experimentation endeavours. Previous experience working on SaaS products with a global audience is highly appreciated, but not a hard requirement.

What you will do

• Play a major part in delivering complex product features, experiments, or systems, from discovery and planning all the way to rollout and analysis

• Build fast, reliable, and user-friendly interfaces using modern frontend technologies

• Create experiments and prototypes to quickly validate assumptions and guide product decisions

• Look at problems deeply, identify patterns, and propose solutions that are both scalable and maintainable

• Work closely with Product, Design, and Data to align on goals and deliver meaningful outcomes, even in ambiguous problem spaces

• Influence product direction through technical insight and user empathy

• Contribute to how we work as a team, including our engineering standards, rituals, and processes

• Support teammates, share knowledge, and help maintain a collaborative, open, and inclusive culture

• Communicate clearly and thoughtfully, explaining decisions, trade-offs, and risks in an approachable way

About you

• Strong experience building modern web applications at scale

• Deep knowledge of React and TypeScript, combined with a pragmatic approach to architecture

• Able to bring clarity to ambiguous situations and move work forward with confidence

• Comfortable making decisions based on context and data

• You actively question whether we are solving the right problem, propose alternatives, and help the team course-correct early

• Passionate about product and motivated by solving real user problems

• Keen to work closely with Product, Design, and Data to help shape what we build

• Enjoys iterative work, simplifying scope, and learning through experimentation

• Strong communicator (in English) who thrives in cross-functional collaboration

• Humble, open and eager to help others succeed

• Energized by ownership and motivated to create real impact

• Based in Zurich or willing to relocate (this is an on-site role, 2-3 days in office min.)

• Swiss or EU passport holder (or another permit that allows you to work in Switzerland)

Nice to have’s

• Some comfort and interest in working across the stack (Node.js or simple backend work in Go)

• Experience writing SQL queries and doing basic analysis, for example checking how a metric behaves across A/B segments to validate an experiment (not running a full experiment analysis with significance calculations etc.)

• Familiarity with common metrics relevant to SaaS companies, such as MAU, ARR, conversion rates, or churn

What success looks like in this role

• Regularly ships meaningful product increments and experiments with measurable impact

• Influences product direction through technical insight and user empathy

• Improves the frontend codebase beyond the scope of assigned work

• Is a trusted partner for Product and Design in ambiguous problem spaces

How we work

• We value curiosity over defensiveness

• We expect engineers to seek feedback early and often

• We prefer simple, understandable solutions over clever ones

• We treat mistakes as learning opportunities, not blame assignments

We use the latest technologies

• React (with hooks)

• TypeScript (through Babel)

• Redux

• NodeJs

• styled-components

• Redshift

• Backend: Go, Python, AWS, Hetzner, Cloudflare

Check our stack via https://stackshare.io/smallpdf/frontend

Our benefits

• 🌍 You get to impact how over 30 million people get work done monthly.

• 🚀 Push boundaries and dare to fail - that’s how we learn!

• 🏝️ 30 vacation days - yep, you read that right - you can take them whenever you need them.

• 🕘 Flexibility: we have flexible working hours.

• 🧳 Need a long break? We offer sabbatical leave to employees who’ve been with us for over two years.

• 👶 16 weeks parental leave - 100% of your salary - for all new parents.

• 🐶 Don’t leave your four-legged friends at home; our Zurich office is pet-friendly.

• 📚 A well-being budget of up to 2,000 CHF every year that can be used for training and development (plus days off for courses or training) and for physical and mental well-being purposes.

• 👩‍💻 Hack days to challenge you and your team, plus build amazing things.

How to Apply

Please apply using the form below and upload your CV - in English, as it’s the standard working language at Smallpdf. A PDF format is preferred.

Compensation philosophy

At Smallpdf, we believe compensation should be fair, transparent, and thoughtfully aligned with the value each person brings to our team. Our approach balances several key factors - current market trends, role expectations, seniority, experience, and geographic location - to ensure every offer is both competitive and equitable.

We review our salary ranges regularly to stay in step with the evolving market, and we make decisions based on skills, impact, and responsibility rather than negotiation strength. Our goal is simple: to recognize and reward great work, support long-term growth, and create a compensation structure that feels fair, consistent, and grounded in integrity.

We want everyone at Pdftools to feel valued, supported, and empowered to do their best work - and our compensation philosophy is designed to reflect exactly that.