Frontend Engineering Director

About the Role

We're looking for a technical lead who can own the frontend across OKX's core crypto business verticals. You'll be deeply involved in the full frontend delivery lifecycle across Trading, Web3, Payment, and beyond — not just writing code, but helping teams and products find the right direction, make the right calls, and execute with speed and precision.

This role demands the rigor of an engineer, the strategic thinking of a product manager, and the market instincts of a crypto practitioner. You don't need to carry a full-stack title, but you must genuinely understand frontend, have enough backend fluency to hold your own in architecture discussions, and — above all — understand the business.

Core Responsibilities

Business & Team Leadership Own the overall frontend team across core business verticals including Trading and Payment, covering hiring, development, and pipeline building. Partner effectively with Product, Backend, Security, and Compliance — driving cross-functional outcomes through technical judgment, not just execution.

Product Delivery & Technical Execution Lead technical design and delivery for core business features including trading system frontend experience, wallet and asset management, AI-powered trading products, payment gateway integrations, and KYC/AML frontend implementation. Stay deeply sensitive to business metrics and user experience, making sound trade-offs between speed and quality.

Product & Engineering Thinking in the AI Era Demonstrate deep understanding of how AI is reshaping product paradigms — changing user expectations, product form factors, and R&D efficiency. Integrate AI into product decisions and design, not merely as a productivity tool.

Technical Judgment & Standard-Setting Drive tech stack alignment and evolution. Proactively identify and address technical risk. Establish high engineering quality standards in complex crypto security contexts — private key security, frontend attack prevention, compliance auditing, and more.

Cross-Team Influence Build dual technical and business influence at the company level. Communicate technical value and business judgment clearly to engineers, product managers, and senior leadership alike. Participate in industry engagements to attract high-potential talent who are genuinely passionate about crypto.

Requirements

Baseline

• Bachelor's degree or above in CS or related field; 10+ years of engineering experience including 5+ years managing technical teams; solid full-stack capabilities with frontend depth
• Deep command of core frontend technologies (React/Vue internals, engineering toolchains, performance optimization, cross-platform solutions), with enough backend and API fluency to drive substantive technical discussions
• Proven track record leading frontend for products with DAU 1M+ in high-concurrency, high-availability environments
• Demonstrated experience driving cross-team collaboration and standard adoption through technical influence rather than organizational authority

Industry Background (Partial Core)

• (Core) Genuine understanding of and enthusiasm for crypto — familiar with CEX/DEX trading mechanics, Web3 wallet and signing mechanisms, and mainstream payment gateway ecosystems
• Experience owning frontend delivery for trading, fintech, payments, or crypto products; comfortable navigating the tensions between compliance, security, and user experience
• Familiarity with the Web3 frontend ecosystem (ethers.js / wagmi / viem, WalletConnect, EVM contract interactions, etc.)
• Global product experience — understands the complexity of multi-language, multi-currency, multi-jurisdiction compliance requirements

Engineering Competencies for the AI Era (Core)

• Deep understanding of how AI is reshaping product design; can integrate AI into product decisions rather than treating it purely as a development accelerator
• Strong ability to model and frame complex problems; defines the right problem boundaries and system abstractions before reaching for solutions
• Proven ability to constrain, guide, and evaluate AI outputs — decomposing complex engineering requirements into AI-executable task sequences
• Experience establishing team-level AI working patterns; familiar with and having practiced AI Spec-Driven Development
• Maintains high standards for code quality and system design integrity alongside — not despite — AI-assisted development

Soft Skills (Core)

• Strong ownership: treats team goals as personal goals — proactive, accountable, clears obstacles without being asked
• Sound judgment: makes high-quality decisions under incomplete information — decisive and accountable
• Execution muscle: makes things actually land, not just live in decks and proposals
• Fast learner: thrives in a fast-moving industry; rapidly absorbs new technologies, business dynamics, and regulatory shifts and converts them into team action
• Bilingual: fluent English for technical discussions, documentation, and international collaboration (written and verbal at working proficiency)