Founding Design Engineer
About the Role
This is the first dedicated design engineering hire at a seed-stage B2B SaaS startup building an AI-native pricing intelligence platform. You'll own frontend coherence end-to-end — the design system, component library, and interface patterns that ensure everything shipped, whether by humans or AI coding agents, feels like a single, polished product. It's a high-ownership role at the intersection of design craft and engineering rigor.
What You'll Do
Own and maintain the design token system, shadcn/ui-based component library, and Tailwind conventions across the full product suite.
Define and enforce frontend patterns using React Query, React Hook Form, and Zod to keep agent-written pull requests consistent by default.
Audit and maintain frontend tooling and quality, including Biome configuration, Playwright E2E coverage, and frontend performance.
Enforce WCAG accessibility standards and integrate brand guidelines directly into the codebase.
Translate design intent into design tokens, component abstractions, and lint rules that maintain long-term coherence.
Integrate AI coding tools (such as Claude Code or Cursor) into frontend workflows and act as the sole bar-raiser for frontend UX across the company.
Contribute to conversational and non-standard AI interfaces, including streaming responses and generative views.
What We're Looking For
5+ years building polished, production-grade product interfaces, with a portfolio of shipped features to demonstrate it.
Primary ownership of a design system or component library in production (a public repo, portfolio piece, or detailed walkthrough is fine).
Deep expertise in React, strict TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and component primitives such as shadcn/ui and Radix UI.
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted coding tools integrated into real frontend workflows.
Comfort being the single owner of frontend standards and UX quality in a small, fast-moving team.
Nice to have: Experience with conversational or chatbot interfaces for B2B users; familiarity with Slack Block Kit, Microsoft Teams Adaptive Cards, or CLI design patterns; experience with animation and UI state transitions (e.g., Framer Motion).
Must be authorized to work in the US — visa sponsorship is not available.
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary: $180,000 – $220,000 USD annually. Equity participation included. No visa sponsorship available.
Location
On-site in San Francisco, CA, USA.