Fractional Founding Designer

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Employment Type: FullTime

About the Role

This is a fractional (10-20 hours per week) founding design role at an early-stage AI recruiting platform in the HR tech space. You will be the first designer, owning the look, feel, and standards of the product from the ground up, not just executing tickets but setting the direction that the whole team builds against.

What You'll Do

• Define and evolve the visual and interaction language of the product across its most important surfaces.

• Establish a design system, design standards, and documentation for engineering and product to build against.

• Create high-fidelity mockups and prototypes using Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD.

• Make product strategy and design decisions with limited information, iterating based on user feedback.

• Collaborate directly with engineering and product to implement designs and resolve technical constraints.

• Conduct user research, usability testing, and gather qualitative feedback to inform design decisions.

• Own design-to-code handoff and communicate clearly with frontend engineers.

What We're Looking For

• 3+ years of product design experience shipping consumer or B2B products end-to-end.

• Proven ability to establish design systems, standards, and documentation for cross-functional teams.

• Proficiency in a modern design tool such as Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD for prototyping and high-fidelity work.

• Comfort making design and strategy decisions in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

• A portfolio that shows shipped products with a clear problem-solving or before/after narrative.

• Experience working in early-stage startups or in fractional and part-time design capacities is a strong plus.

• Familiarity with HTML/CSS and frontend implementation concepts to support smooth handoffs.

Location

Fully remote. Candidates based in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) are preferred.