Alibaba

There are many top-notch front-end engineers here, and we learn a lot from each other.

The front-end team takes its responsibilities seriously and keeps the toolchain up to date. However, this also means that every 2–3 years, there’s usually a major refactoring of existing systems — which can be frustrating, especially when there are already many production features waiting to be released.

Within the engineering organization, front-end roles are often undervalued, so you may frequently need to advocate for the impact of your contributions.

Once you reach the Staff Engineer level, growth opportunities become limited, and it can start to feel like a plateau — especially since there are no clear advancement paths beyond that for front-end engineers.

Management often shows a preference for newly promoted engineers over those who have remained at the same level, regardless of continued performance or lack of upward mobility.

Find a way to treat all engineering roles fairly and consistently.