Design Engineer

Lightning AI•New York, NY

37d•$160,000 - $200,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We are looking for a Senior Design Engineer to join our team and act as a specialist to bridge the final gap between design prototypes and engineering's production code. This role sits at the intersection of product design and frontend engineering, responsible for turning high-fidelity product vision into scalable, production-grade user experiences across the Lightning platform. You will be instrumental in improving our front-end hygiene and stabilizing our React Component Library, ensuring high-quality, performant, and consistent user experiences. With a diverse skill set spanning front-end engineering and design, you thrive in a fast-paced, startup environment and are ready to tackle foundational clean-up to deliver features with a high degree of polish. This is a hybrid role based in our New York City office. The anticipated salary range for this role is $160,000 - $200,000.

Requirements

5+ years building high-quality frontend experiences in production environments
Deep expertise in React, TypeScript, and modern frontend architecture
Strong product and design sensibility — you care about interaction quality, visual polish, and usability details
Experience owning or significantly contributing to a design system or component library
Fluency in Figma and modern design tooling, with the ability to move seamlessly between design and code
Track record of improving frontend quality, performance, or developer experience at scale
Comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous startup environments
Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across design and engineering

Nice To Haves

Experience with data-dense or developer-facing products
Experience with AI/ML or technical platforms
Experience with performance optimization or large-scale React apps
Experience contributing to open source

Responsibilities

Build production-grade user experiences in React and TypeScript, translating high-fidelity product design directly into code
Own and evolve Lightning’s React component library, improving consistency, performance, and developer ergonomics
Drive front-end architecture decisions that enable the platform to scale across new AI workflows and enterprise use cases
Partner closely with product design, product, and engineering to ship features with a high degree of polish and usability
Identify and eliminate UX and frontend complexity across the product surface
Improve front-end performance, accessibility, and interaction quality across the platform
Establish best practices for design-to-code workflows, raising the bar for frontend craftsmanship across teams
Contribute to interactive prototypes and exploratory builds that accelerate product iteration

Benefits

We offer competitive base salaries and equity with a 25% one year cliff and monthly vesting thereafter.
For our international employees, we work with our EOR to pay you in your local currency and provide equitable benefits across the globe.
Medical, dental and vision
Life and AD&D insurance
Flexible paid time off including winter closure
Paid family leave benefits
$500 monthly meal reimbursement, including groceries & food delivery services
$500 one time home office stipend
$1,000 annual learning & development stipend
100% Citibike membership (NYC only)
$45/month gym membership
Additional various medical and mental health services