Product Designer - NY

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Scope Labs builds products for startups and modernizes systems for enterprises. As a preferred Cognition partner, we pair our engineers with Devin, their AI software engineer, to move at a speed traditional teams can't match. Scope is a team of founders consisting of experienced product managers, designers, and developers. Our expertise lies in challenging fundamental assumptions, dissecting legacy behaviors, simplifying intricate processes, and delivering experiences that leave a lasting impact. We are a small, but driven team and are looking to expand!

OUR TEAM

We’re currently a small team passionate about developing the next generation of digital products. Our founding team spent has experience building, designing, and scaling products at places like Google, Tesla, Palantir, MIT, Finary (YC W21), Scale AI, etc. We’re a remote-friendly team with a majority of us working from warm and sunny New York City.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

At Scope Labs, we believe that exceptional design happens where creativity meets code. As one of our first Design Engineers, you’ll bridge the gap between design and development by crafting expressive, performant, and accessible interfaces that bring our products (and our clients’ products) to life. We’re looking for someone who can design in Figma and in the browser. Someone who obsesses over micro-interactions, accessibility, consistency, and motion, while also understanding implementation tradeoffs and technical constraints. You’ll collaborate directly with both our designers and engineers to prototype, refine, and ship polished interfaces at production quality. You’ll help shape what design engineering means at Scope: building the systems, components, and design language that make our products feel cohesive, responsive, and truly alive. At Scope, you won’t simply translate predetermined designs into code. You’ll be given a set of functional requirements and the autonomy to determine how they should come to life for the end user. You’ll turn ambiguity into clear, intuitive interfaces, prototype the right solution, and establish the design foundation for the complete end-to-end feature before partnering with the engineering team to bring it into production. Beyond product interfaces, you’ll have opportunities to contribute across the full design spectrum. You may help craft brand identities, design landing pages and marketing campaigns, create sales and launch materials, refine visual systems, develop motion and interactive concepts, and shape how Scope and our clients present themselves across digital touchpoints. This role is ideal for someone who wants to influence not only how products work, but also how they look, feel, and communicate.

WHY JOIN SCOPE LABS

At Scope Labs, you’ll work at the intersection of design and engineering, helping define the culture and standards for how we build products. You’ll collaborate with a passionate, ego-free team that values detail, craft, and performance. You’ll see your work move from idea → prototype → production in weeks, not months. We offer competitive compensation, benefits, and an environment that celebrates ownership, curiosity, and creative freedom.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own Features from Ambiguity to Execution: Take functional requirements, business goals, and user needs and determine how they should come together as a clear, intuitive end-to-end experience. Define the interaction model, interface, states, and design foundation before partnering with engineers to bring the feature into production.
• Design in Figma and Code: Move fluidly between design tools and the browser. Create polished interfaces, working prototypes, and production-ready front-end code using React, TypeScript, and modern CSS frameworks.
• Shape the User Experience: Make thoughtful decisions about information architecture, workflows, responsive behavior, edge cases, empty states, and feedback patterns. Turn complex functionality into experiences that feel simple and intentional.
• Craft Delightful Experiences: Focus on the details that make products feel effortless: motion, responsiveness, and tactile feedback - always balancing implementation cost with user impact.
• Build Reusable Systems: Create and maintain reusable components, UI primitives, patterns, and design-system foundations that improve consistency and accelerate delivery across projects.
• Establish Best Practices: Advocate for high-quality front-end architecture, accessibility standards, and thoughtful animation. Help evolve our internal design systems and libraries.
• Prototype Fearlessly: Explore, experiment, and test. Sometimes, the fastest path to clarity is to build it — in React, Claude Code, Figma, etc.
• Contribute Beyond Product Design: Help shape brand identities, landing pages, marketing websites, launch campaigns, pitch decks, sales materials, visual systems, and other creative work for Scope and our clients.
• Improve How We Work: Help establish design-engineering standards, improve internal workflows, evolve shared libraries, and identify new tools or processes that raise the quality and speed of delivery.
• Communicate with Clients: Present work clearly, explain design and technical decisions, gather feedback, and help clients move from unclear requirements toward confident product decisions.
• Operate with Ownership: Manage your work independently, surface risks early, and take responsibility for ensuring the projects you support meet Scope’s standards for craft, usability, and execution.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 3+ years of experience in product design, front-end development, or a hybrid role such as design engineer, creative developer, UI engineer, or product designer with strong coding ability.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating polished digital products, thoughtful interaction design, and high-quality front-end implementation.
• Strong product judgment and the ability to make confident decisions around hierarchy, usability, information architecture, and interaction patterns.
• Experience building with React or React frameworks like Next.js.
• Strong command of responsive design, cross-browser behavior, and modern layout systems.
• Proficiency in Figma, including components, variants, auto layout, prototyping, and design-system workflows.
• Understanding of motion design principles; ability to express them with libraries like Framer Motion, React Spring, or GSAP.
• Familiarity with performance optimization, page speed, rendering behavior, and front-end best practices.
• Comfort working across the full feature lifecycle, from early exploration and prototyping through engineering collaboration, QA, and launch.
• Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to explain design decisions to designers, engineers, product leaders, and clients.
• Self-starter with high ownership, strong attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-moving environment.

BONUS POINTS

• Experience designing brand identities, landing pages
• Experience designing and implementing motion, transitions, and micro-interactions using tools such as Framer Motion, React Spring, or GSAP.
• Curiosity about emerging design and development tools, including AI-assisted design, prototyping, and front-end workflows.
• Experience with animation tools or creative coding (Framer, Three.js, Rive, Lottie).
• Experience with mobile frameworks (React Native, Expo) and cross-platform interaction design.

If you possess some of these skills but not all of them, we still encourage you to apply!

CONTRACT TO HIRE

This position is initially offered as a contract role, providing an exciting opportunity to contribute to impactful projects within our team. While the position starts on a contract basis, there is the potential for conversion to a full-time, permanent role for the right candidate who demonstrates strong performance, cultural fit, and a commitment to our organization's goals. We are looking for someone eager to make a meaningful contribution and grow with us over time.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

At Scope we take pride in our best asset, our people! We focus on ensuring that our culture makes life better for the team! Scope Labs is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity in its workforce. We actively encourage applications from all qualified individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace fosters innovation and creativity, and we welcome candidates who share our values of respect, collaboration, and excellence. To perform this job successfully, the employee(s) will possess the skills, aptitudes, and abilities to perform each duty proficiently. Some requirements may exclude individuals who pose a direct threat or significant risk to the health or safety of themselves or others. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an at will relationship. To confirm you've read this far, please include the word "lighthouse" as the first word of your cover letter or application answer.