Senior Product Design Engineer

Lever, Inc.; Netherlands; Remote; EUR 89,000 - 134,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote

Async-first workflow

Equity included

30 paid time off days per year

Team retreats

Job summary

Lever, Inc. is seeking a Senior Product Design Engineer based in the Netherlands. You will own core product surfaces end to end, blending product design judgment with design engineering to deliver production‑ready components.

You will work at the intersection of design systems, frontend engineering, and interaction design, building reusable primitives and evolving an open‑source component library. Remote‑first, async collaboration is emphasized.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a product designer who has evolved substantially into design engineering, owning complex product areas from problem definition through launch and iteration.
• Exceptional product design craft combined with strong frontend engineering skills in HTML, CSS, TypeScript, and React.
• Ability to independently turn product and design concepts into polished, working implementations without requiring another engineer.
• Strong experience designing and engineering custom UI components and primitives, not just consuming third‑party libraries.
• Deep expertise in headless primitive composition, with experience using Base UI, Radix, or similar tech; open-source component systems are a plus.
• Strong understanding of motion design principles and when animation adds value.
• Daily experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, v0.
• Deep familiarity with web standards and browser primitives; know when to avoid extra libraries.
• Proven experience building and maintaining design systems with reusable primitives and components.
• Strong accessibility knowledge covering WCAG, ARIA, keyboard interaction, focus management, and accessible design patterns.
• Understanding of APIs, data models, application state, and technical constraints behind product experiences.
• Strong written communication for async collaboration.
• Collaborative and receptive to feedback, with ability to share unfinished work and adapt designs accordingly.
• High-trust, high-autonomy mindset for remote/async work.
• Nice to have: open-source contributions or side projects; experience with scheduling/calendaring; Intl.DateTimeFormat.

Responsibilities

• Own core product surfaces from concept through production, including scheduling primitives and team/enterprise experiences.
• Translate product problems into high‑quality designs, prototypes, and production‑ready frontend components.
• Build and test working prototypes using AI-assisted development tools to accelerate validation.
• Deliver components that engineers can use directly with correct semantics and accessible interactions.
• Design, engineer, and maintain custom components and primitives rather than relying on generic UI libraries.
• Continuously improve the shared component library by auditing primitives and refining patterns.
• Maintain consistency across tokens, spacing, states, dark mode, motion, and interaction patterns.
• Apply motion thoughtfully to clarify interactions without adding unnecessary complexity.
• Own outcomes by defining success criteria, supporting implementation, and evaluating results.
• Maintain a high accessibility standard across all work including keyboard navigation and focus management.
• Refine details that elevate product quality like empty states, error messaging, and transitions.
• Collaborate openly with product/design leadership and incorporate feedback.
• Document design thinking and decisions for asynchronous collaboration.

Skills

Product design ownership

HTML

CSS

TypeScript

React

Design systems

Open‑source components

Motion design

Accessibility WCAG/ARIA

AI-assisted development tools

Base UI

Radix

Remote collaboration

Tools

Base UI

Radix

Open-source components

Claude Code

Cursor

v0

Job description

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Product Design Engineer based in Netherlands.

Own core product experiences end to end, combining exceptional product design judgment with strong design engineering skills.
You’ll turn ideas and prototypes into production-ready components that are accessible, robust, and ready for engineers to use directly.
The role sits at the intersection of product design, frontend engineering, design systems, and interaction design.
You’ll build and evolve reusable primitives while continuously improving a shared open-source component library.
You’ll work with modern AI development tools to prototype quickly, explore ideas, and accelerate the path from concept to production.
The environment is remote-first and async, with a high degree of autonomy, direct feedback, and a strong emphasis on craft and thoughtful collaboration.
This is an opportunity to shape both the product experience and the design system behind a globally used scheduling platform.

Accountabilities

• Own core product surfaces from concept through production, including booking flows, scheduling primitives, and team and enterprise experiences.

• Translate product problems and hypotheses into high-quality designs, prototypes, and production-ready frontend components.

• Build and test working prototypes using modern AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, and v0, selecting the fastest approach for answering product and design questions.

• Deliver components that product engineers can use directly, ensuring correct semantics, complete interaction states, accessibility, and production-quality implementation.

• Design, engineer, and maintain custom components and primitives rather than relying on generic third-party UI libraries.

• Continuously improve the shared component library by auditing existing primitives, identifying gaps, refining patterns, and contributing reusable components rather than creating one-off solutions.

• Maintain consistency across tokens, spacing, states, dark mode, motion, and interaction patterns, ensuring every new product surface strengthens the overall design system.

• Apply motion and animation thoughtfully, using it to clarify interactions and improve the experience without adding unnecessary complexity.

• Own outcomes rather than simply delivering design artifacts by framing hypotheses, defining success criteria, supporting implementation, and evaluating results.

• Maintain a high accessibility standard across all work, including keyboard navigation, focus management, semantics, contrast, and motion preferences.

• Refine the details that elevate product quality, including empty states, error messaging, loading behavior, transitions, and other interaction nuances.

• Collaborate openly with product and design leadership, sharing work early, incorporating feedback, and allowing technical and product constraints to inform design decisions.

• Document design thinking and decisions through written documentation, prototypes, and recorded walkthroughs to support effective asynchronous collaboration.

Requirements:

• Proven experience as a product designer who has evolved substantially into design engineering, with ownership of complex and ambiguous product areas from problem definition through launch and iteration.

• Exceptional product design craft combined with strong frontend engineering skills in HTML, CSS, TypeScript, and React.

• Demonstrated ability to independently turn product and design concepts into polished, working implementations without relying on another engineer to make ideas production-ready.

• Strong experience designing and engineering custom UI components and primitives, rather than primarily consuming third-party component libraries.

• Deep expertise in headless primitive composition, with experience using Base UI, Radix, or similar technologies; direct experience with open-source component systems is a strong advantage.

• Strong understanding of motion design principles, including timing, easing, choreography, and the judgment to determine when animation adds value.

• Daily experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, v0, or comparable solutions.

• Deep familiarity with web standards and browser-native platform primitives, with the ability to understand what the browser already provides before introducing additional libraries.

• Proven experience building and maintaining design systems, including understanding the distinction between reusable primitives, components, and product-specific patterns.

• Strong accessibility knowledge covering WCAG, ARIA, assistive technologies, keyboard interaction, focus management, and accessible design patterns.

• Ability to understand the technical architecture behind product experiences, including APIs, data models, application state, and technical constraints.

• Strong written communication skills, with an emphasis on clarity and effective asynchronous documentation.

• Collaborative and receptive approach to feedback, with a willingness to share unfinished work, challenge ideas constructively, and adapt designs based on input.

• High-trust, high-autonomy mindset with the ability to thrive in a remote and asynchronous environment without constant supervision.

• Nice to have: Open-source contributions or publicly available side projects demonstrating your design and engineering work.

• Nice to have: Experience with scheduling, calendaring, time zones, or recurrence rules.

• Nice to have: Familiarity with locale- and time-aware web APIs such as Intl.DateTimeFormat.

Benefits:

• Competitive compensation: $100,000–$150,000 annual salary, with the same salary range regardless of where you live.

• Equity: Equity included as part of the compensation package.

• Fully remote: Work from anywhere in the world.

• Async-first flexibility: Work according to your own schedule and flow without unnecessary meetings or daily standups.

• High autonomy: No micromanagement, with a strong culture of trust and ownership.

• Work-life flexibility: Take time away for personal and family needs without requiring approval for every interruption.

• Paid time off: 30 paid OOO days per year, regardless of where you are located.

• Team retreats: Annual team retreats in different locations around the world.

• People-first culture: Work in a stable, family-friendly environment focused on trust, kindness, and sustainable high performance.

• AI-enabled workflow: Use modern AI development tools as part of the everyday product and engineering process.

• High-impact work: Shape core product experiences and reusable design infrastructure used by a globally distributed user base.

• Design and engineering ownership: Have meaningful influence over both the product experience and the underlying component system.