Design Engineer

About the role

This is not a handoff role: you design it, you implement it, you own it, working directly with the design lead in two-week project cycles with full autonomy.

Responsibilities

• Own design and front-end implementation of core product flows end-to-end
• Lead a rebrand rollout across the website and product
• Define information architecture and design flows for the platform's main objects
• Loop into in-flight work streams, give design feedback, and progressively take on owned projects
• Talk to customers directly and bring product intuition to what gets built
• Work in two-week project cycles with full autonomy to propose and drive your own work

Requirements

• 5+ years design or micro-interaction engineering experience with a portfolio demonstrating craft and curiosity
• Comfortable implementing designs in code, not just Figma — an independent force who polishes the product without needing frontend engineer bandwidth
• Pre-AI technical frontend experience who actually understands the code they're pushing
• AI-native mindset, uses AI to move faster
• Background at Vercel, Linear, or a developer tooling company with strong design engineering culture
• Excited about implementing their own designs using AI tools without waiting on engineering
• Name a collaborator who was better than them, signals low ego and team orientation
• Shipped micro-interactions and polished product experiences to real users in production
• Genuine curiosity about dev tooling and cloud infrastructure, not just interested in the design problem

Red Flags

• No portfolio or weak portfolio, non-starter
• Expects to hand off Figma files without being involved in implementation
• Cannot name a collaborator who impressed them, usually signals ego and poor teamwork
• Under 5 years of experience
• The team's current frontend engineer needs to review every single microinteraction pr they put together