Design Engineer

Base Compute; Melbourne; On-site; AUD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Strong base salary

Direct influence on AI

Genuinely hard problems

Small team, fast iteration

Job summary

Base Compute is reimagining how AI runs on devices, building interfaces that empower private, offline intelligence. You’ll own the product’s frontend and influence how users interact with agentic AI running locally on user hardware.

We’re seeking a Design Engineer who blends taste with engineering skill to ship polished interfaces. You’ll design and implement new AI interfaces, drive product flows, and contribute to a cohesive design system as part of a small, fast-moving team in Melbourne (with

Qualifications

• 3+ years building production frontends.
• Expertise in TypeScript and React; strong typography and layout.
• Hands-on experience building products on top of LLMs.

Responsibilities

• New AI interfaces: invent patterns for models and agents; streaming tasks and user control.
• Product and interaction design: turn ideas into polished interfaces.
• Frontend engineering: build the interface end-to-end.
• Design systems: create a component library and visual language.

Skills

TypeScript

React

Typography

Layout

Interaction design

Figma

LLMs

Ownership

Animation

Desktop apps

Tools

Electron

Tauri

SwiftUI

Job description

About Us

Base Compute is an AI inference lab. Our mission is to bring AGI on device. We believe in a world where everyone has access to intelligence: fast, private and always available on your device.

We're building the end-to-end stack that makes local AI powerful, from GPU optimization and inference engines to customized agentic experiences that run directly on users’ hardware.

The Role

The way we interact with software is fundamentally changing right now. Most products are simply plugging AI into interfaces designed for a different era. We're building new ones, designed around what models can actually do and what becomes possible when agentic AI runs on your own device: always-on intelligence that’s private and works offline.

We're looking for a Design Engineer to help invent those interfaces. You'll have the taste to know what great software feels like and the engineering skills to ship it. You'll own our product’s frontend and have direct influence on how people experience our technology.

What You’ll Work On

• New AI interfaces: Inventing patterns for working with models and agents, from streaming long running tasks to handling mistakes and giving users the right amount of control




• Product and interaction design: Taking features from rough idea to polished interface, designing flows and interactions yourself




• Frontend engineering: Building our product’s interface end-to-end, from component architecture to performance




• Design systems: Creating a component library and visual language that keeps the product consistent as it grows

What We’re Looking For

• 3+ years building production frontends, with a portfolio that shows strong visual and product taste




• Expertise in TypeScript and React (or similar), plus strong skills in typography, layout, interaction design and Figma (or similar)




• Hands-on experience building products on top of LLMs




• Ownership: you take ambiguous problems from first sketch to shipped feature




• Clear communication: you explain design decisions simply and give honest feedback




• Nice-to-haves: animation or creative coding, desktop app frameworks (Electron, Tauri, SwiftUI)

What We Offer

• Equity and strong base salary




• Direct influence on how people experience AI




• Genuinely hard problems that haven't been solved yet




• Small team, fast iteration, low bureaucracy

Location

The team is based in Melbourne and Berlin and works in-person from the office most days. We require strong written and spoken English, since the team collaborates across time zones.