Design Engineer Fellow · In-Office · Three unpaid

Sunspell is a venture lab building AI-native companies at the edge of culture, design, and technology. Most studios build one company at a time. We are building the system that builds companies.

We create products from zero, develop the people who can lead them, and turn the lessons from every venture into shared tools, workflows, and infrastructure, so each launch makes the next one faster.

Design is not simply the output of the lab. It is one of the ways we discover, test, and make new companies real.

• The Design Engineer Learning Fellowship is a three-month program for emerging designers who want to learn how to bring their work to life through code, automation, AI tools, systems, and working prototypes.
• This is not a traditional internship or a junior production role. It is built around guided learning, internal exercises, critiques, shadowing, and a self-directed capstone. Fellows may observe active product development and, where appropriate, take part in supervised exploratory prototypes that are not relied on for company operations or delivery.
• The goal is not to arrive as a design engineer. It is to leave with the foundations to become one.

• How to turn visual designs into working digital experiences
• How to make interfaces interactive, responsive, and usable
• How to create automations that connect tools, data, and workflows
• How to use AI tools across design, prototyping, code, and operations
• How to build small product experiments from idea to working prototype
• How to think in components, systems, states, flows, and logic
• How to prototype quickly without waiting for a traditional handoff
• How early-stage products are shaped, critiqued, tested, and refined
• How to develop stronger taste across product, interface, interaction, and implementation

• Month one, foundations. The core tools, workflows, and principles behind design engineering, with guided exercises on layout, interaction, responsive design, prototyping, and translating static designs into functional experiences.
• Month two, automations and systems. How to create lightweight automations, connect tools, build reusable components, and see how interfaces, workflows, and data fit together, so small systems make teams faster and products smarter.
• Month three, product prototype. A self-directed capstone: a small product concept, automation, or interactive experience that brings together everything you have learned, with critique and guidance from the Sunspell team throughout.
• A visual or product designer who wants to make your designs come to life
• A self-taught designer with small experiments, prototypes, or side projects
• Fluent in Figma, with real visual and product taste
• Curious, resourceful, and comfortable learning through making
• Excited by early-stage products, weird ideas, and fast-moving creative environments
• New to code and AI tools, and genuinely excited to learn them

• You are a designer. You work in Figma or a similar tool and care about layout, type, hierarchy, and detail.
• Some design work to show: studies, projects, side work, or shipped product. Taste and thinking matter more than a perfect portfolio.
• You do not need to know how to code, and you do not need any experience with AI tools. That is exactly what the fellowship is here to teach you.

• A completed capstone project
• Practical experience creating automations and functional prototypes
• A stronger understanding of design engineering as a discipline
• Exposure to how early-stage products are shaped inside a venture lab
• Regular critique and feedback from practicing designers, builders, and founders
• A clearer sense of whether design engineering is a path you want to pursue

• This is a three-month, full-time, unpaid educational fellowship, structured primarily around learning, guided exercises, shadowing, and portfolio development. It does not guarantee employment during or after the fellowship.
• Academic credit is encouraged where available.
• Time commitment is full-time, in person in New York, for the three months. Fellows join the team for working sessions, critiques, and learning blocks.