Founding Design Engineer
$150k - $250kHIKINEX
Founding Design Engineer Location: San Francisco, CA (On-site, 5 days/week) Compensation: $150,000–$250,000 Base + Equity (0.4–0.8%) About the Opportunity An early-stage, venture-backed AI startup is seeking a Founding Design Engineer to become its first design-focused engineering hire. This is a unique opportunity to own the end-to-end user experience for a highly technical AI platform, defining the product's design language while building production-ready frontend applications. Working directly with the founding team, you'll help shape the future of an AI-native enterprise platform by combining exceptional product design with hands‑on frontend engineering. What You'll Do Own product design and frontend implementation from concept to production. Design and build production‑ready interfaces using React and TypeScript . Establish the company's design language, design system, and UX patterns. Collaborate closely with founders to build intuitive experiences for complex technical workflows. Design for enterprise B2B software, platform products, and AI‑powered user experiences. What We're Looking For 1 - 5 years of experience in design, recent experience shipping frontend code in React/TypeScript Experience at a venture‑backed early‑stage startup or fast‑paced high‑growth company Has a self‑driven project with real users (portfolio, side project, or startup) Experience at an early‑stage startup or other fast‑paced environment. Experience designing technical products such as developer tools, enterprise SaaS, infrastructure, platform software, or AI products. Self‑starter who thrives in an ownership‑driven environment with minimal direction. Design/Arts/CS degree Skills Tech stack React, TypeScript, Figma, Tailwind CSS PLUS Next.js Figma Experience with design systems and component libraries. Familiarity with AI, agentic workflows, or Human‑Computer Interaction (HCI) principles. Visa Sponsorship The company can support: H-1B transfers O-1 visas TN visas J-1 visas Please note that new H-1B sponsorship is not available. Why Join? Be the first Design Engineer and help define the product from the ground up. Own both design and implementation without traditional design handoffs. Work directly with an experienced founding team in a collaborative, high‑impact environment. Receive competitive compensation and meaningful equity while helping build a category‑defining AI product. #J-18808-Ljbffr HIKINEX
- ...Design Engineer Role Design engineer who owns the full visual and interactive experience of Jinba's platform. You'll build our design... ...ship production code alongside the engineering team. This is a founding design role for someone who wants to shape how enterprise users...Suggested
Jinba
San Francisco, CA2 days ago $150k - $250k
...Design Engineer Location: San Francisco (in-person, in-office, full-time ONLY) Compensation: $150k-$250k base + $25K-$50K cash bonus... ...and ownership ~ Meaningful equity upside as part of the founding team ~ Medical, dental, and vision insurance ~401(k)...SuggestedFull timeWork at officeRelocation packageVirio
San Francisco, CA21 hours ago$180k - $220k
...About the Role This is a founding-level, high-ownership position sitting at the intersection of design and engineering. You'll be the sole bar-raiser for frontend UX across a fast-moving, early-stage B2B SaaS company building an AI-powered pricing optimization platform...SuggestedRemote workClera
San Francisco, CA15 hours ago- ..., slide deck, merchandise, or factory) should communicate the quality and ambition of our company behind it. As Orchard's Founding Design Engineer, you will establish the design function and own design across product, brand, marketing, software engineering, hardware, and...SuggestedWeekend work
Quiet Capital
San Francisco, CA2 days ago - ...Founding Design Engineer As Weave's Founding Design Engineer, your job is to make complex engineering data feel simple, beautiful and actionable. You'll own the intersection of design and engineering, turning insights about how software teams work into interfaces that...Suggested
Weave, Inc.
San Francisco, CA4 days ago $180k - $220k
...Job Description Job Description About the Role This is the founding design engineering role at a seed-stage AI pricing platform, sitting at the intersection of design systems and production frontend engineering. The team ships UI fast using a combination of human...RelocationClera
San Francisco, CA5 days ago- ...opportunity. If you’re hungry to take ownership and build systems that matter, this is it. About The Role We’re hiring a Design Engineer to join our founding team in building the future of healthcare compliance AI. You’ll work directly with the founders, owning entire...Night shift
- ...of. We care obsessively about taste: in design, in product, in every detail. We're... ...founders of billion dollar companies. Design Engineering Video is the most powerful way humans... ...touch. It's the product. We're hiring a Founding Design Engineer who lives at that intersection...
$180k - $220k
...built on deep pricing experience from our founding team who have run over 150 pricing... ...assembled our team of 8 (pricing experts and engineers) to deliver that capability. Our main... ...Coherence is, and this role owns it: the design tokens, the component library, the frontend...Work experience placementWork at officeImmediate startVisa sponsorshipFlexible hours$100k - $150k
.... Work that used to take teams of lawyers weeks now happens in minutes. YC S24, founded by a former M&A attorney from Kirkland & Ellis and Gunderson Dettmer. We're hiring a design engineer to own how the product looks, feels, and works. You'll design features in Figma,...$140k - $180k
...contracts through legal at record speed, with transparency, predictable pricing, and exceptional quality. We're hiring a Founding Product Engineer to build the platform that’s reinventing how legal work gets done. You’ll sit next to attorneys and AI engineers, turning...Work at officeArceus
San Francisco, CA21 hours ago$190k - $210k
...Founding Product Engineer Title of Role: Founding Product Engineer Location: San Francisco, CA, Hybrid Company Stage of Funding... ...and Go. Collaborate closely with product managers and designers to ensure high-quality user experiences that meet market needs...Work at officeRecruiting from Scratch
San Francisco, CA20 hours ago- ...Founding Product Engineer This high-growth technology company is building essential financial infrastructure to support and grow America's... ...candidate will own the full-stack product lifecycle: scoping, designing, shipping, and iterating in the field. This role requires...
The Misch Group
San Francisco, CA3 days ago - ...About The Role As a founding engineer, you'll bring our MVP product to maturity and help define the technical architecture of a new category... ...of software. You will work on frontier engineering and design questions about how to best marry code and intelligence. You'...
VILLAGE Inc
San Francisco, CA20 hours ago - ...more about our vision in our manifesto. About the Role As a Product Designer at HappyRobot, you will own the end-to-end design process for major product surfaces, working closely with PMs, engineers, AI researchers, and leadership. You’ll take ideas from early concept...Worldwide
Happy Robot
San Francisco, CA2 days ago $140k - $180k
...About the Role This is a founding engineering seat at an early-stage legal AI company where you will build the core product from the ground up, working side by side with attorneys and AI engineers. You will have the rare opportunity to set engineering culture and standards...Full timeContract work$200k - $250k
...About the Role This is a founding-level, hands-on engineering role at an early-stage B2B SaaS company building an AI-driven pricing and monetization... ...leadership are central to this role. What You'll Do Scope, design, build, and iterate on whole product modules...Full timeRelocation- ...University of Technology at 15. Joined Taobao at 17. At Alibaba, architected the core recommendation engine serving 500M daily users. What You'll Do: This is the first design hire at Sirius, and we're looking for an engineer first - someone who ships production UI...Full timeFlexible hours
Sirius Corporation Limited
San Francisco, CA2 days ago - ...experiences to lift revenue. We're... Talent-dense (8 people, 6 engineers, 75% ex-founders) Well-funded ($6M from Google & Leaders... ...–Friday + often push through weekends What You'll Do Own design across Helium's entire AI Experience generation product, including...Full timeWork at officeRelocationVisa sponsorshipMonday to FridayWeekend work
Helium
San Francisco, CA4 days ago $160k - $200k
...quickly toward its next stage of growth. Founded 2024 · ~12 people · Industry: B2B SaaS, AI, Fintech The Role As a Founding Engineer, you would join a small, product-minded... ...Owning product features end-to-end, from design through implementation Contributing to...Full timeH1bVisa sponsorshipDavid Joseph & Company
San Francisco, CA17 days ago$190k - $210k
...well-funded, early-stage fintech startup is looking for a Founding Product Engineer to join a small, senior team building a new kind of collaborative... ...with a 40,000+ person waitlist. What You'll Do Design, develop, and deliver features, fixes, and improvements...Remote workClera
San Francisco, CA26 days ago$200k - $250k
...discount governance, and CPQ workflows. We're looking for a Founding Product Engineer to own entire product modules end-to-end, work directly... ...Financial logic correctness, AI-native tooling, and clean API design are first-class priorities here. What You'll Do Own...Remote workVisa sponsorshipClera
San Francisco, CA26 days ago$120k - $180k
...Description Job Description About the Role This is a founding product engineering role at a seed-stage AI startup building computer vision solutions... ...and discovery. Strong product taste and user-focused design sensibility. Comfort with 0-to-1 product building and...Full timeRelocationClera
San Francisco, CA5 days ago- ...is poised for nationwide scale, to hire an entrepreneurial Founding Product Engineer in San Francisco. As the third engineering hire, you... ...business contexts, and build solutions independently. Shape Design & APIs: Partner with backend engineers on API contracts...
Success Matcher Recruitment
San Francisco, CA26 days ago - Open call for Founders / Founding Teams (Product Management / Engineering roles) In 1973 at Xerox PARC, Bob Metcalfe sketched a way for many computers to share a single wire — borrowing the throughput math from his study of Hawaii's ALOHAnet — and he and David Boggs built...
- ...we will be the infrastructure layer healthcare runs on. We've found product-market fit (multi-million dollar ARR, 100+ customers including... ...and we've never said no to a time off request. The Role As a Design Engineer at Metriport, you'll spend your time understanding customer...Work at officeWork from homeFlexible hours
Metriport
San Francisco, CA1 day ago $125k - $250k
...Join to apply for the Design Engineer role at StackAI Join to apply for the Design Engineer role at StackAI This range is... ...customers (including public companies and unicorns!). Team: Founded by two MIT PhDs, backed by major investors such as Y...Full timeStackAI
San Francisco, CA4 days ago- ...revenue. You can see some of our work here: About the role As a Design Engineer at idler, you'll own the visual design and user experience... ...is an in-person role in San Francisco. We're a tight-knit founding team and we play to win. Join us if you like to win too. #J-1...Work at officeRelocation package
Idler
San Francisco, CA15 hours ago - ...We are a small, fast-growing team of engineers in San Francisco powering Fortune 100 enterprises... ...adapt quickly ~ Prior startup or founding experience is a plus About the... ...accuracy, and usage analytics Maintain a design system and accessibility standards...Work at officeVisa sponsorshipRelocation package
Trypulse
San Francisco, CA1 day ago $190k - $310k
...Brand Designer We're looking for a brand designer who lives at the intersection of design... ...and intuitive to our audience of engineers, researchers, and heads of AI/ML at some... ...efforts. You'll work directly with the founding team to prototype, build, and polish the...Full timeWork at officeVisa sponsorshipRelocation packageApplied Compute
San Francisco, CA20 hours ago
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