Founding Product Engineer, Frontend

VAIF Studio is a generative AI platform and backend for building software. Describe what you want in plain language, shape it on a visual schema canvas, or write the code yourself - all three work on the same project.

We are based in Detroit and very early. Today VAIF is built by one developer, so every role on this page is a first hire: wide ownership, direct work with the founder, and real influence on how the company operates.

VAIF lets people build software three ways - by prompting, on a visual canvas, and in code. Making those feel like one coherent product is mostly a frontend problem, and it is yours.

You will ship features from rough idea to production, own the quality bar for everything a customer sees, and shape the design system the product grows on.

• Ship product features end to end in Type Script, from first sketch through release
• Build dense, technical interfaces - data views, editors, and visual tools - that stay fast and readable
• Treat accessibility as a product requirement: keyboard paths, screen readers, contrast, and motion
• Grow the design system and component library the rest of the product is built from
• Measure and improve performance on real devices and real networks

• Several years building production web applications in Type Script with a modern component framework
• Working knowledge of WCAG and how screen readers actually behave, not just what linters report
• Fluency with Tailwind or an equivalent utility-first styling system
• Strong product taste: you can take a loose brief to a polished, shippable result
• Comfortable reading an API contract and working closely with backend engineers

• You have built canvas, diagramming, or visual-editor interfaces
• You have worked on tools whose users are developers

• Remote, with working hours overlapping US time zones.
• Written first: decisions, proposals, and hand-offs are written down so they survive the call.
• Small, shippable steps over big reveals. We would rather release something useful this week than something perfect next quarter.
• Early-stage honesty: priorities move, process is still being invented, and you will help invent it.