Founding Design Engineer ; Chicago, Miami, or preferre

Own Sophia's visual identity and user experience — and bring it to life in code.

Full-time role

Location flexible (Chicago, Miami, or New York preferred; remote possible)

Sophia is an end-to-end agentic matchmaker using advanced language, voice, and vision models to deliver deeply tailored introductions.

• We harness AI to help people forge deeper, more meaningful relationships.
• Sophia was founded by two successful serial entrepreneurs, incubated in their venture studio, with leading high profile founders as advisors and investors.

Lead the design and front-end implementation of Sophia's product experience. You think in systems, craft with care, and can ship your own work — bridging the gap between beautiful design and production code. This role is design-first. You'll own the end-to-end experience — from visual identity and interaction design to the front-end code that delivers it. You'll sit in on real user sessions, feel the friction firsthand, and translate your observations directly into refined, production-ready interfaces.

• Own Sophia's design system — typography, color, spacing, motion, and component library.
• Design and iterate on core user flows: onboarding, matching reveals, member profiles, and ongoing communication.
• Maintain a high bar for craft — every interaction should feel considered and intentional.

• Build your designs in code, primarily in React and Type Script.
• Collaborate closely with engineers to ensure design intent is preserved all the way to production.
• Own the front-end component library and ensure consistency across the product.

• Join live onboarding calls and member sessions to observe behavior firsthand.
• Identify UX friction and turn observations into immediate, high-quality improvements.
• Advocate for the user in every product and engineering discussion.

• Work directly with founders to align design direction with product vision.
• Partner with engineers on AI-driven flows — voice interfaces, dossier previews, and match reveals.
• Contribute to product decisions with a strong design point of view.

• Strong portfolio demonstrating UI/UX design — especially for consumer or high-touch digital products.
• Deep fluency with Figma, including component architecture and design systems.
• Excellent visual sensibility: typography, layout, color, and motion.
• Experience designing for emotional or high-stakes user experiences is a strong plus.
• Proficient in React and modern front-end development (Type Script, CSS, animation libraries).
• Comfortable reading and contributing to a production codebase.
• Enough back-end familiarity to understand API contracts and data shapes.

• A designer who codes — not a coder who designs.
• Highly opinionated about craft, but low-ego about collaboration.
• Curious about people: why they behave as they do, what they feel, what they need.
• Comfortable working in ambiguity and iterating quickly toward clarity.

• Full-time role; contract-to-hire or W2 options available.
• Location flexible (Chicago, Miami, or New York preferred; remote possible).

Send your resume to our team and we'll be in touch.