Founding Design Engineer

Sperton Global AS•Village of Highland Falls, NY

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

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. 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.

Requirements

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

Nice To Haves

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

Responsibilities

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.
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.
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.
Help establish the company’s broader visual language across product and brand.
Work on: Landing pages, Product launches, Marketing campaigns, Social content, Motion and micro-interactions, Typography, Layout systems, Visual storytelling, Brand assets.
Create one cohesive design language across every customer touchpoint.