Director, Full Stack Developer Lead

Role

Horizon Media seeks a Director of Full Stack Application Development to own and evolve blu, the company’s mission-critical, client-facing platform. This leader will be the technical authority for the platform, responsible for architecture, development, scalability, performance, and user experience while managing and mentoring a multidisciplinary team of onshore and offshore/nearshore developers.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, develop, and scale the blu platform using React and Node.js.
• Translate designs and wireframes into intuitive, accessible, high-performance user-facing features in partnership with UX, Creative, and Product teams.
• Design and maintain resilient, scalable RESTful APIs and microservices.
• Implement and advocate for front-end components with strong focus on performance, accessibility, and responsiveness.
• Lead and mentor onshore and offshore/nearshore developers; provide technical guidance and foster professional growth.
• Establish and enforce engineering best practices, including clean, testable, and well-documented code.
• Lead code reviews, architecture discussions, sprint planning, and technical strategy sessions.
• Collaborate with DevOps and QA to support and improve CI/CD pipelines and ensure applications meet security and maintainability standards.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field.
• 10+ years of software/UI development experience and 6+ years of full-stack development experience with proven team leadership.
• Experience managing and mentoring offshore/nearshore development teams.
• Expert proficiency with React, JavaScript/TypeScript, and modern front-end tooling (e.g., Webpack, Vite, Babel).
• Strong experience with Node.js and server-side frameworks such as Express.
• Extensive experience building and integrating RESTful APIs and microservices.
• Familiarity with cloud services (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Proficiency with SQL and/or NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MongoDB).
• Deep understanding of CI/CD principles and version control systems (e.g., Git, GitHub Actions, Jenkins).
• Experience with vibe-coding platforms such as Cursor, Replit, lovable, and bolt.
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills.

Nice-to-Have

• Experience in media or adTech.
• Experience building UI for conversational platforms leveraging ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini APIs.
• Experience with AI frameworks (A2A, MCP).
• Familiarity with GraphQL or WebSockets.
• Experience with containerization tools like Docker and Kubernetes.
• Background building internal developer tools or dashboards.
• Exposure to internationalization (i18n) and accessibility best practices.

Salary & Benefits

• Salary range: $180,000.00 - $210,000.00 (base).
• Benefits include discretionary bonus, health insurance, life and disability insurance, retirement savings plans, company paid holidays, unlimited paid time off (PTO), mental health and wellness resources, pet insurance, childcare resources, identity theft insurance, fertility assistance programs, and fitness reimbursement.

Location & Notes

• Role is tagged remote (#LI-REMOTE).