Founding Design Engineer

Title: Founding Design Engineer

Location: United States, United States, United States

Job Description:

Location: San Francisco, CA
Work Arrangement: In-office Monday–Friday initially, transitioning to hybrid over time
Employment: Full-time
Visa: Open to eligible visa transfers and relocation support

About the Company

We’re working with a fast-growing, venture-backed AI startup building tools that help technical and business teams create, deploy, and manage AI-powered workflows and agents.

The company is approximately 20 people, works with sophisticated technology companies, and is entering an important stage of product and brand development.

They’re now hiring a Founding Design Engineer to establish the visual language, product experience, and design systems that will shape the company as it scales.

The Role

This is not a traditional product design role where you create Figma files and hand them to engineering.

You’ll operate at the intersection of product design, visual/brand design, and frontend engineering, owning how the company looks, feels, and behaves across both product and marketing surfaces.

You’ll work directly with the CEO and engineering team to define the design function from the ground up.

A major focus will be shaping a new developer-facing knowledge and content product, while also building the systems that allow the broader team to ship consistently at a high design bar.

What You’ll Own

Product Design

Own product design end-to-end across complex workflows involving developers, teams, content, knowledge, and AI-powered experiences.

Translate ambiguous product problems into intuitive, polished interfaces.

Work directly with users and internal stakeholders to identify friction and continuously improve the product experience.

Design Engineering

Turn your own designs into production-ready interfaces.

Build and maintain frontend components using technologies such as:

• React

• Next.js

• TypeScript

• Storybook

• Tailwind CSS

• shadcn

Work directly inside the production codebase rather than relying entirely on engineering handoffs.

Design Systems

Create and evolve the company’s design system from the ground up.

Own:

• Component libraries

• Design tokens

• Interaction patterns

• Documentation

• UI standards

• Code-first design infrastructure

Build systems that help engineers move quickly while maintaining consistency and craft.

Brand & Visual Design

Help establish the company’s broader visual language across product and brand.

You may work on:

• Landing pages

• Product launches

• Marketing campaigns

• Social content

• Motion and micro-interactions

• Typography

• Layout systems

• Visual storytelling

• Brand assets

The goal is to create one cohesive design language across every customer touchpoint.

What We’re Looking For

Must-Haves

• Approximately 5–10 years of experience spanning product design, visual/brand design, and design engineering

• Experience as a first, founding, or sole designer at an early-stage startup, ideally Seed through Series B

• Strong portfolio demonstrating a high level of visual and product craft

• Experience owning both product design and brand/marketing design

• Hands-on experience shipping production frontend UI

• Strong working knowledge of React and/or Next.js

• Experience building or extending design systems

• Deep proficiency with Figma

• Comfortable working directly in a production codebase

• Comfortable operating with significant autonomy and ambiguity

• Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate

• Comfortable working from the San Francisco office five days per week initially

Strong Plus

• Experience with Storybook, Tailwind CSS, and shadcn

• Experience designing products for developers or technical buyers

• Background in developer tools, B2B SaaS, infrastructure, or AI products

• Experience joining a startup early and building the design function from scratch

• Strong frontend engineering instincts

• Experience with animation, motion, or interactive web design

This Role Is Probably Not a Fit If

• Your experience is primarily Figma-only product design

• You no longer regularly design or build hands-on

• Your background is exclusively brand or exclusively product design

• You prefer handing designs off rather than implementing them yourself

• You need significant structure or clearly defined processes to operate effectively

• You are primarily looking for a design-management role

What Success Looks Like

You’ll become the person responsible for raising the design bar across the company.

You’ll help define:

• How the product feels

• How the brand communicates

• How the frontend is built

• How engineers use the design system

• How new products and features are visually expressed

You’ll have unusually broad ownership and the opportunity to establish the design foundations of an early-stage AI company from the ground up.

Interview Process

1. Initial Portfolio Screen — 45 minutes
Deep dive into your work across product, visual design, brand, and design engineering.

2. CEO Conversation
Discuss the product, company direction, role scope, and design philosophy.

3. Design Exercise — approximately 2–4 hours
A practical exercise based on a real product or design problem. The focus is systems thinking, visual judgment, product craft, and execution.

4. Final Team Interview — approximately 45 minutes
Meet members of engineering and go-to-market to assess collaboration, communication, and how you work cross-functionally.

5. Offer

About Sperton

Sperton _____ is part of Sperton Global, a recruitment and consulting company with an international reach. We are committed to helping our clients achieve success in their hiring processes, finding the right people for the right positions.