Founding Design Engineer

About the role

We're hiring our founding design engineer to own design across product, brand, and marketing. This is a rare opportunity to define the visual and experiential foundation of a fast-growing fintech company from the ground up.

Responsibilities

• Own product design and implementation — Drive the complete design process from concept to production code, translating complex investment workflows into intuitive interfaces built with React, TypeScript, and Tailwind
• Shape Aqua's visual identity — Establish our brand guidelines and design system, creating a cohesive visual language that signals trust, sophistication, and ease of use
• Create high-impact brand and marketing assets — Design sales decks, one-pagers, conference materials, and digital content that close deals and maintain consistency across all touchpoints
• Be the voice of design — Champion design thinking across the organization while establishing the foundations (processes, tools, culture) for the future design team
• Partner with leadership — Work directly with founders and executives to scale the design function as the company grows

Qualifications

• 3-5+ years designing and building in startups, with experience as a product designer, design engineer, or frontend engineer with strong design sensibility
• Fluent in both design and code — You're as comfortable in Figma as you are writing React components and can move seamlessly between designing interfaces and implementing them
• Your portfolio shows end-to-end work: polished product interfaces you've coded and brand assets you've designed
• Comfortable with ambiguity — You thrive in early-stage environments, know when to prioritize speed vs. polish, and don't need detailed specs to produce great work
• Strong communicator — You can articulate design decisions to both technical and business stakeholders and build consensus across teams
• Excited about ownership — You want to be the founding design engineer, setting the standard for everything from iconography to interaction patterns to brand voice
• Proficiency in modern design tools (Figma, Adobe Creative Suite) and frontend technologies (React, TypeScript, Tailwind/CSS)