Founding Design Engineer

About Aqua Aqua is the operating system for wealth channel alternatives. We are building the platform for independent broker-dealers (IBDs) and independent financial advisors (RIAs) to invest in alternative assets. We are on track to process $5B in new transactions for 2025, with customer logos including some of the largest RIAs/BDs in the nation and asset managers including Blackstone, Apollo, JLL, Blue Owl, etc. 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. You'll tackle a unique design challenge: making complex alternative investment workflows feel simple and trustworthy for financial advisors managing billions in client assets. Our users expect institutional-grade sophistication wrapped in consumer-grade simplicity. You'll work directly with leadership, product, and engineering to ship both the product interfaces that power transactions and the brand assets that drive sales. What You’ll Do 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 Who You Are 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) Experience in fintech, wealth management, or B2B SaaS is a plus but not required