UI Engineer – AI

Role Overview

• Own the UI layer — from vision to production. You’re not just writing components. You’re shaping how our product feels.
• Architect and build production-grade frontends for AI agent products using React/Next.js.
• Design interaction patterns for natural language and agent-driven UIs — the kind of interfaces nobody has fully figured out yet.
• Brief and shape visual design with a strong sense for UX and layout — you don’t need to push pixels, but you need to know what great looks like.
• Translate business requirements into product thinking — you understand why we’re building, not just what.
• Establish frontend best practices: component architecture, testing strategies, code quality, CI/CD.
• Work at the speed of AI while maintaining the quality bar of production software.

Requirements

• You’ve built apps. Great apps.
• You know React and Next.js inside out — the component trees, the state management headaches, the CSS battles at 2am.
• You’ve shipped production code, debugged impossible bugs, and architected frontends that actually scale.
• You started building with AI. Cursor, Claude, Copilot, v0 — you tried them all.
• You fell into every trap along the way. The hallucinated APIs. The spaghetti architecture that AI generates when you don’t guide it.
• The “works in demo, breaks in production” moments. The missing tests. But you figured it out.
• You learned how to prompt, how to constrain, how to review.
• You know when to trust AI output and when to throw it away.
• You’ve developed a workflow that actually produces production-grade, maintainable code — not just impressive demos.
• You write unit tests. You version properly. You evaluate output quality systematically.
• You treat AI like what it is: an incredibly powerful tool that needs an incredibly skilled operator.
• You have deep experience shipping real applications — probably years of it.
• You understand frontend architecture at a level where you can make big decisions confidently: state management, performance, component design, API integration, accessibility.
• Ideally, you’ve already worked on AI-first interfaces — conversational UIs, agent interactions, natural language input patterns.
• You don’t just build what’s specified. You understand the business context. You push back when something doesn’t make sense. You have opinions about UX and you can articulate them.

Tech Stack

• JavaScript
• Next.js
• React

Benefits

• Anniversary Programme: We treasure every moment you spend with us, and when the days turn into years, we mark it with a little gift — even from your first year!
• Corporate Benefits: Are you sporty, techy, adventurous, stylish, or nerdy? Whichever category you belong to, you can benefit from our numerous discount offerings and get up to 40% off your purchases.
• Gift Matching: Care for a good cause? We do too. When you donate to a charity, we’ll double your donations — up to €250.
• Mental Health: When life happens or if you just want to talk to a mental health expert, we’ve got you covered in Cologne, Hamburg, or remotely wherever you are.
• Referral Programme: Get rewarded when you refer someone for one of our open roles and they get the job.
• RTL+: As part of RTL Deutschland, you can enjoy all your favourite TV shows with free access to an RTL+ Premium account.
• Social Day: Every year, you can take a fully paid day off to support a cause you care about — together with other smartclippers or alone, you decide.
• Sports: We support a healthy lifestyle through various options such as gym reimbursement, urban sports club membership, or even leasing a bike. There’s definitely something for you.
• Thank you Programme: Every six months, smartclippers can show gratitude and reward exceptional colleagues with a €100 bonus — all on us!