Founding Design Engineer

GovWell•New York, NY

23d•Hybrid

About The Position

GovWell is hiring a Founding Design Engineer to own the frontend foundations that define the quality, accessibility, and coherence of our product. This role sits at the intersection of design and engineering. You will translate interaction patterns into durable, reusable systems that make it easy for teams to ship consistent, high-quality user experiences. You will also raise the bar on accessibility, performance, and frontend architecture across the platform. Because GovWell powers government services used by people with diverse backgrounds and levels of digital fluency, accessibility is not a checkbox for us; it’s central to delivering equitable public services. You will help ensure our product is inclusive, interpretable, and usable for everyone it touches. Your work will ensure GovWell feels fast, intuitive, and unified as the product expands. This is a hands-on, high-ownership role based in our NYC hybrid environment (3+ days per week in office).

Requirements

5+ years building complex SaaS frontend systems in React and TypeScript.
Experience designing, scaling, or maintaining a shared design system.
Strong frontend systems thinker who builds primitives and reusable patterns rather than one-off pages.
Deep familiarity with accessibility standards, inclusive design, and performance optimization.
Comfortable translating design intent into durable technical abstractions.
Experience collaborating closely with product designers in fast-moving environments.
Able to guide frontend direction without becoming a bottleneck.
Startup-oriented operator who moves quickly while preserving quality.
Aligned with GovWell’s core values.

Responsibilities

Own frontend architecture foundations, including shared component systems, state patterns, and UI primitives.
Translate system-level design direction into composable, reusable React components.
Establish and enforce accessibility standards across the platform, including WCAG compliance and inclusive interaction patterns.
Improve performance across high-volume operational workflows.
Design and implement safe, interpretable human-in-the-loop interaction primitives for AI-powered features.
Embed early with product pods to shape implementation strategy and maintain frontend consistency.
Continuously refactor and consolidate existing surfaces to reduce entropy and improve usability over time.