Founding Design Engineer

Overview

This is the first hire after the two founders. The mission is redefining the human-computer interface for AI—not just clean UI, but inventing new components for how humans and agents cooperate (e.g., agents messaging you on iMessage). A successful first month includes spotting and proactively fixing design nits, rethinking flows to feel natural and frictionless (e.g., onboarding), and shipping improvements that make the mobile app feel native and delightful.

Mobile is a priority surface.

• Own entire product flows, surfaces, and the overall brand end-to-end: onboarding, mobile app, chat interface, landing pages, core inbox, calendar
• Identify and proactively fix design nits across the product — pixel-level alignment, spacing, motion
• Design flows that feel natural, not just look good — reduce friction, think from the user's seat
• Ship improvements to the mobile app to make it feel native and delightful
• Invent new interface patterns for human-AI cooperation — the next era of HCI
• Work directly alongside the two founders with no bureaucracy or hand-holding

• Extremely high design sense — the single hard requirement. Must be able to decompose why a design is good or bad at an obsessive level of detail (not "the logo looks generic" but "this gradient is what AI tools default to, the corner radius is cut off, it echoes a Lucide icon...")
• A genuinely crafted portfolio

• Design-to-code: prototypes in code, ships in Next.js/React;
  SwiftUI a plus (engineering is explicitly learnable on the job with Claude Code — design taste is not)
• AI-native workflow — moves fast with Claude Code and similar tools
• Prior design engineer titles, especially at high-talent-bar companies (e.g., Ramp)
• Figma or Paper fluency

Our client is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. Employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, military service, genetic information, or any other status protected by law.