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Founding Design Engineer
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Location: San Francisco, CA
Work Arrangement: In-office Monday–Friday initially, transitioning to hybrid over time
Employment: Full-time
Visa: Open to eligible visa transfers and relocation support
About The Company
We’re working with a fast-growing, venture-backed AI startup building tools that help technical and business teams create, deploy, and manage AI-powered workflows and agents.
The company is approximately 20 people, works with sophisticated technology companies, and is entering an important stage of product and brand development.
They’re now hiring a Founding Design Engineer to establish the visual language, product experience, and design systems that will shape the company as it scales.
The Role
This is not a traditional product design role where you create Figma files and hand them to engineering.
You’ll operate at the intersection of product design, visual/brand design, and frontend engineering, owning how the company looks, feels, and behaves across both product and marketing surfaces.
You’ll work directly with the CEO and engineering team to define the design function from the ground up.
A major focus will be shaping a new developer-facing knowledge and content product, while also building the systems that allow the broader team to ship consistently at a high design bar.
What You’ll Own
Product Design
Own product design end-to-end across complex workflows involving developers, teams, content, knowledge, and AI-powered experiences.
Translate ambiguous product problems into intuitive, polished interfaces.
Work directly with users and internal stakeholders to identify friction and continuously improve the product experience.
Design Engineering
Turn your own designs into production-ready interfaces.
Build And Maintain Frontend Components Using Technologies Such As
Design Systems
Create and evolve the company’s design system from the ground up.
Own
Brand & Visual Design
Help establish the company’s broader visual language across product and brand.
You May Work On
What We’re Looking For
Must-Haves
You’ll become the person responsible for raising the design bar across the company.
You’ll Help Define
Interview Process
Sperton _____ is part of Sperton Global, a recruitment and consulting company with an international reach. We are committed to helping our clients achieve success in their hiring processes, finding the right people for the right positions.
Work Arrangement: In-office Monday–Friday initially, transitioning to hybrid over time
Employment: Full-time
Visa: Open to eligible visa transfers and relocation support
About The Company
We’re working with a fast-growing, venture-backed AI startup building tools that help technical and business teams create, deploy, and manage AI-powered workflows and agents.
The company is approximately 20 people, works with sophisticated technology companies, and is entering an important stage of product and brand development.
They’re now hiring a Founding Design Engineer to establish the visual language, product experience, and design systems that will shape the company as it scales.
The Role
This is not a traditional product design role where you create Figma files and hand them to engineering.
You’ll operate at the intersection of product design, visual/brand design, and frontend engineering, owning how the company looks, feels, and behaves across both product and marketing surfaces.
You’ll work directly with the CEO and engineering team to define the design function from the ground up.
A major focus will be shaping a new developer-facing knowledge and content product, while also building the systems that allow the broader team to ship consistently at a high design bar.
What You’ll Own
Product Design
Own product design end-to-end across complex workflows involving developers, teams, content, knowledge, and AI-powered experiences.
Translate ambiguous product problems into intuitive, polished interfaces.
Work directly with users and internal stakeholders to identify friction and continuously improve the product experience.
Design Engineering
Turn your own designs into production-ready interfaces.
Build And Maintain Frontend Components Using Technologies Such As
- React
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- Storybook
- Tailwind CSS
- shadcn
Design Systems
Create and evolve the company’s design system from the ground up.
Own
- Component libraries
- Design tokens
- Interaction patterns
- Documentation
- UI standards
- Code-first design infrastructure
Brand & Visual Design
Help establish the company’s broader visual language across product and brand.
You May Work On
- Landing pages
- Product launches
- Marketing campaigns
- Social content
- Motion and micro-interactions
- Typography
- Layout systems
- Visual storytelling
- Brand assets
What We’re Looking For
Must-Haves
- Approximately 5–10 years of experience spanning product design, visual/brand design, and design engineering
- Experience as a first, founding, or sole designer at an early-stage startup, ideally Seed through Series B
- Strong portfolio demonstrating a high level of visual and product craft
- Experience owning both product design and brand/marketing design
- Hands-on experience shipping production frontend UI
- Strong working knowledge of React and/or Next.js
- Experience building or extending design systems
- Deep proficiency with Figma
- Comfortable working directly in a production codebase
- Comfortable operating with significant autonomy and ambiguity
- Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate
- Comfortable working from the San Francisco office five days per week initially
- Experience with Storybook, Tailwind CSS, and shadcn
- Experience designing products for developers or technical buyers
- Background in developer tools, B2B SaaS, infrastructure, or AI products
- Experience joining a startup early and building the design function from scratch
- Strong frontend engineering instincts
- Experience with animation, motion, or interactive web design
- Your experience is primarily Figma-only product design
- You no longer regularly design or build hands-on
- Your background is exclusively brand or exclusively product design
- You prefer handing designs off rather than implementing them yourself
- You need significant structure or clearly defined processes to operate effectively
- You are primarily looking for a design-management role
You’ll become the person responsible for raising the design bar across the company.
You’ll Help Define
- How the product feels
- How the brand communicates
- How the frontend is built
- How engineers use the design system
- How new products and features are visually expressed
Interview Process
- Initial Portfolio Screen — 45 minutes Deep dive into your work across product, visual design, brand, and design engineering.
- CEO Conversation Discuss the product, company direction, role scope, and design philosophy.
- Design Exercise — approximately 2–4 hours A practical exercise based on a real product or design problem. The focus is systems thinking, visual judgment, product craft, and execution.
- Final Team Interview — approximately 45 minutes Meet members of engineering and go-to-market to assess collaboration, communication, and how you work cross-functionally.
- Offer
Sperton _____ is part of Sperton Global, a recruitment and consulting company with an international reach. We are committed to helping our clients achieve success in their hiring processes, finding the right people for the right positions.