Founding Design Engineer

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Employment Type: FullTime

About the Role

This is the first dedicated design engineering hire at a seed-stage B2B SaaS startup building an AI-native pricing intelligence platform. You'll own frontend coherence end-to-end — the design system, component library, and interface patterns that ensure everything shipped, whether by humans or AI coding agents, feels like a single, polished product. It's a high-ownership role at the intersection of design craft and engineering rigor.

What You'll Do

• Own and maintain the design token system, shadcn/ui-based component library, and Tailwind conventions across the full product suite.

• Define and enforce frontend patterns using React Query, React Hook Form, and Zod to keep agent-written pull requests consistent by default.

• Audit and maintain frontend tooling and quality, including Biome configuration, Playwright E2E coverage, and frontend performance.

• Enforce WCAG accessibility standards and integrate brand guidelines directly into the codebase.

• Translate design intent into design tokens, component abstractions, and lint rules that maintain long-term coherence.

• Integrate AI coding tools (such as Claude Code or Cursor) into frontend workflows and act as the sole bar-raiser for frontend UX across the company.

• Contribute to conversational and non-standard AI interfaces, including streaming responses and generative views.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years building polished, production-grade product interfaces, with a portfolio of shipped features to demonstrate it.

• Primary ownership of a design system or component library in production (a public repo, portfolio piece, or detailed walkthrough is fine).

• Deep expertise in React, strict TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and component primitives such as shadcn/ui and Radix UI.

• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted coding tools integrated into real frontend workflows.

• Comfort being the single owner of frontend standards and UX quality in a small, fast-moving team.

• Nice to have: Experience with conversational or chatbot interfaces for B2B users; familiarity with Slack Block Kit, Microsoft Teams Adaptive Cards, or CLI design patterns; experience with animation and UI state transitions (e.g., Framer Motion).

• Must be authorized to work in the US — visa sponsorship is not available.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $180,000 – $220,000 USD annually. Equity participation included. No visa sponsorship available.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, CA, USA.