Principal Frontend Engineer

About Us:

Havoc is a leader in all-domain collaborative autonomy. Its software-defined hardware approach powers military and commercial-grade autonomous systems across sea, air, and land to sense, decide, and act together in complex and contested environments. Havoc connects assets, enabling them to share information, adapt in real time, and continue operating even when communications are disrupted or denied. Havoc optimizes mission performance and minimizes human risk.

Havoc was founded in 2024 and headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. Learn more at

Havoc: All-Domain Collaborative Autonomy.

About the Role

HavocAI is seeking a Principal Frontend Engineer to help architect, build, and scale the real-time interfaces operators use to command autonomous systems across air, surface, and subsurface domains.

Our operators command autonomous vehicles across air, surface, and subsurface domains through a single real-time geospatial interface. Live position and state data streams continuously onto a map, and the decisions made on that screen affect vehicles operating in the real world.

We are looking for a Principal Frontend Engineer with deep, hands-on experience building and scaling real-time geospatial applications. You have taken systems like this through significant growth in data volume and entity count, and you know from experience which problems arrive at each stage and how to get ahead of them. You will work directly with the Head of Frontend and a strong senior team, bringing that experience to the technical decisions that shape how the platform grows.

This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports.

What You’ll Do

• Frontend Architecture & Real-Time Systems
• Geospatial Engineering
• Bring proven, production-tested patterns for high-frequency real-time data in React applications: transport-to-render design, update throttling, and keeping telemetry off the render path
• Guide the design and evolution of the map layer system: layer lifecycle, interaction state, feature identity, and rendering performance on large feature sets
• Work with the Head of Frontend and senior engineers on scaling decisions, contributing the perspective of someone who has made them before
• Build alongside the team: implement the hard parts, set the example in code, and review with an eye toward what will hold up at scale
• Identify performance and architectural risks early, before they become incidents
• Communicate technical decisions clearly through design reviews, technical proposals, and code, building alignment without creating unnecessary process
• Mentor senior engineers in real-time and geospatial engineering

What We’re Looking For

• 10+ years of frontend engineering experience, including significant experience operating at Staff, Principal, or equivalent technical scope.
• Deep production experience building and scaling high-volume, real-time applications.
• Expert-level experience with React and TypeScript, including a first-principles understanding of React’s rendering model and frontend performance.
• Deep experience building map-based geospatial applications using MapLibre, Mapbox GL, Deck.gl
• , or equivalent technologies.
• Demonstrated experience optimizing large and dynamic geospatial feature sets.
• Hands-on experience scaling a real-time application through significant growth in tracked entities, update frequency, or data volume.
• Experience with multiple real-time communication technologies such as WebSockets, MQTT, gRPC-web, SSE, or similar protocols.
• Deep browser performance expertise across rendering, memory, CPU, networking, and GPU bottlenecks.
• Experience designing client-side data architectures using workers, batching, caching, state boundaries, and other techniques for isolating high-frequency workloads.
• Experience designing applications for degraded or intermittent connectivity, including reconnection and state reconciliation.
• Strong software architecture and systems-design fundamentals.
• Demonstrated ability to make sound technical tradeoffs and sequence architectural changes within a production system.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence technical direction without relying on formal authority.
• High ownership and comfort operating in a fast-moving, ambiguous engineering environment.
• Nice to Have
• Experience taking an internal operational tool to a multi-tenant product
• Data visualization depth (D3, custom charting, large-dataset rendering)
• 3D and WebGL: three.js, custom shaders, terrain, or vertically distributed asset rendering
• Experience with defense, aerospace, robotics, or other operationally critical systems

What Success Looks Like

Within your first 12 months, you will have:

Helped establish a frontend architecture capable of supporting significantly greater numbers of autonomous assets, telemetry streams, and real-time updates.

Improved the performance, responsiveness, and reliability of HavocAI’s geospatial interfaces.

Established scalable patterns for real-time data ingestion, state management, geospatial rendering, and degraded-connectivity scenarios.

Identified and addressed architectural risks before they became constraints on product or platform growth.

Raised the technical bar across the frontend organization through hands-on engineering, design reviews, architecture, and mentorship.

Our Values:

Innovation:

We are driven to break new ground. Every day presents an opportunity to challenge the status quo, think boldly, and deliver advanced solutions that transform the future of defense technology.

Integrity:

We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards, ensuring transparency, accountability, and trust in all our actions and partnerships.

Mission-Driven:

We are focused on achieving impactful outcomes that align with our core mission—protecting lives through innovation.

Forward-Leaning:

We continuously seek out new opportunities and remain at the forefront of technological advancements. We embrace change and anticipate the challenges of tomorrow with confidence and creativity.

Ownership of All Tasks:

At HavocAI, no problem is too complex or too trivial. We believe that greatness comes from tackling the hardest challenges, but also in handling the smallest, sometimes thankless, tasks with the same level of commitment and care.

Servant Leadership:

We lead by serving others, whether it’s supporting our employees, partners, or the broader community. Empowering those around us is key to achieving long-term success and making a lasting impact.