Fractional Founding Designer

About the Role This is a founding design position at an early-stage AI-powered recruiting platform, working 10–20 hours per week in a fractional capacity. You won't be executing tickets — you'll be setting the visual and interaction standards that the entire product is built against, owning the look, feel, and design language from the ground up. What You'll Do Define and own the product's design direction, establishing the visual identity and UX standards everyone else builds against. Create high-fidelity mockups and interactive prototypes using tools like Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD. Build and document a design system that scales with the team. Work directly with engineering and product to implement designs and navigate technical constraints. Conduct or facilitate user research, usability testing, and qualitative feedback sessions to continuously refine the product. Manage design-to-code handoff, with an understanding of how designs translate to frontend implementation. What We're Looking For 3+ years of product design experience shipping consumer or B2B products end-to-end. Demonstrated experience establishing design systems, standards, and documentation for engineering teams. Proficiency in Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD for prototyping and high-fidelity design work. Comfort making design and product strategy decisions with incomplete information, iterating based on real user feedback. A portfolio showcasing shipped products with a clear problem-solving or before/after narrative. Experience at early-stage startups or in fractional/part-time design roles is a strong plus. Familiarity with HTML/CSS and frontend implementation concepts is a bonus. Location Fully remote. Open to candidates based in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland).