AI Design Engineer

1800Contacts; Draper (UT); Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free eye exams for your family

Lenses and service discounts

Healthcare coverage

401(k) match

Flexible PTO

Tuition reimbursement program

In-house restaurant with discounted Me

Free snacks, ice cream, and drinks

Job summary

SeekWell, the parent company of 1-800 Contacts, Luna, and The Framery, is seeking an Applied AI Design Engineer for its CX Incubator. You will build AI-powered mobile experiences and prototypes, using LLMs, AI services, and APIs, while collaborating with design and marketing to turn ideas into testable simulations.

You will evaluate AI models, ground experiences with customer data, and contribute to a prototyping platform.

Qualifications

• Strong frontend or mobile engineering experience with React or similar frameworks.
• Hands-on experience applying AI in prototypes or customer experiences.
• Experience with LLMs, conversational AI, or personalization systems.
• Ability to turn ambiguous AI concepts into functional POCs.

Responsibilities

• Turn ideas into functional prototypes for mobile apps.
• Build AI-powered frontend and mobile experiences using AI services and data.
• Prototype with models and decide approaches for content decisioning and personalization.
• Independently define technical approaches to convert concepts into working POCS.
• Create realistic customer simulations for internal/external testing.
• Ground AI experiences using customer data and guardrails.
• Connect prototypes to content libraries, AI SDKs, and staging systems.
• Contribute reusable AI and app capabilities to the prototyping platform.
• Use AI-native workflows with Cursor, Claude, Copilot and similar tools.
• Help define guardrails for safe, brand-appropriate AI experiences.
• Iterate prototypes based on user feedback and testing.

Skills

Frontend development

Mobile development

AI integration

LLMs

Voice experiences

Tools

React

iOS development

APIs

AI SDKs

Cursor

Claude

Copilot

Job description

Who we are

SeekWell is the parent company of 1-800 Contacts, Luna, and The Framery. Our goal is to make it simpler, easier, and more accessible for people to get the vision care they need. We maintain the legendary, award-winning culture 1-800 Contacts started almost 30 years ago and continue to develop innovative, pioneering products and businesses that make consumers cheer. We’re owned by KKR – one of the world’s largest and most successful private equity investment companies. We’ve built an excellent company and changed an industry by putting the customer first, always. The best is yet to come!

Why you want this job

We're building toward a future where every customer interaction with vision care is seamless, informed, and genuinely personal. Our design and product teams are early in building the systems that make that possible, and AI is core to how we're getting there.

The CX Incubator exists to rapidly build and test new concepts for our mobile app before larger investments are made. We're looking for a hands-on Applied AI Design Engineer who combines strong frontend/mobile software engineering, applied AI experience, and strong product and design instincts to turn ambitious customer experience ideas into functional, testable prototypes.

You'll work alongside a marketer and designer to take concepts from ideation to realistic, testable simulations and prototypes. This is an engineering role at its core: you'll write code and build functional customer-facing experiences, applying and integrating AI technologies including conversational AI, content decisioning, recommendations, personalization, generative experiences, and voice interactions.

You'll also use AI-native development tools and workflows to move quickly from idea to working simulations and prototypes. This role isn't simply about using AI to code faster; it's about understanding, evaluating, and applying AI technologies to solve real customer problems and independently figuring out how to turn early concepts into working POCs. The goal is to prove out the experience and the technology behind it through functional prototypes—not to build the final production-ready solution.

This is a role for a builder who is comfortable with ambiguity, enjoys creating working solutions quickly, and learns through experimentation.

What you’ll do

• Turn ideas, customer problems, and hypotheses into functional, testable prototypes, starting with our mobile app.
• Build AI-powered frontend and mobile experiences using LLMs, AI/ML services, APIs, customer and product data, and modern web and mobile app technologies.
• Research, evaluate, and prototype with AI models, services, and capabilities to determine the right approach for customer use cases such as content and intelligent decisioning, recommendations, personalization, generative content, conversational AI, and voice experiences.
• Independently determine the technical approach needed to take loosely defined AI-powered concepts from idea to a functional, testable POC.
• Create realistic customer simulations that can be tested with internal and external audiences.
• Explore how to ground, guide, and evaluate AI experiences using customer profile data, customer context, and human-defined guardrails.
• Connect prototypes to content libraries, AI SDKs, and staging systems.
• Contribute reusable AI and application capabilities to our prototyping platform.
• Use AI-native development workflows with tools like Cursor, Claude, Copilot, and similar technologies.
• Help define practical guardrails for safe, reliable, and brand-appropriate customer-facing AI experiences.
• Use feedback from user and customer testing to iterate on prototypes and explore new approaches.

What you’ll need

• Strong frontend or mobile software engineering skills and the ability to write code independently, with experience building web or native mobile applications using React, Angular, or similar frameworks. Experience with iOS development is a plus.
• Hands-on experience integrating and applying AI technologies, models, or services within applications, prototypes, or customer experiences.
• Experience working with applied AI technologies such as LLMs, conversational AI, recommendation or decisioning systems, personalization, retrieval/grounding, agents, or generative AI.
• Demonstrated ability to independently take an ambiguous AI-powered concept, determine how to build it, and deliver a functional POC or prototype.
• Experience integrating APIs, cloud services, data sources, and external systems.
• Familiarity with AI-native development tools such as Cursor, Claude, Copilot, or similar technologies.
• Strong product and design instincts and an appreciation for great customer experiences.
• Comfort with ambiguity and rapid iteration.
• Experience incorporating user or customer feedback into prototypes and iterating based on what you learn.
• Portfolio, prototypes, side projects, or examples that demonstrate curiosity and self-directed building.

Perks

• Free eye exams for your entire family
• Deep discounts on lenses, glasses, and other services
• Amazing healthcare coverage
• 401(k) match
• Flexible PTO
• Tuition reimbursement program
• In-house restaurant with highly discounted meals (Steak dinner under $6)
• Free snacks, ice cream, and drinks every day
• Full onsite gym

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.