Design Engineer

Stealth Vertical AI Startup; New York (NY); On-site; USD 110,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Stealth Vertical AI Startup in New York City is seeking a founding design engineer who will own product surfaces from concept to shipped React components. You will set the craft bar for UX across the hotel OS, collaborating closely with founders and operators to ship AI-native interfaces that reduce manual workflows.

You will prototype AI-powered workflows using advanced coding tools, building with React, TypeScript, and Tailwind, and you’ll translate complex hospitality processes into

Qualifications

• Shipped interfaces with both design and frontend build; can justify decisions.
• Fluent in React, TypeScript, Tailwind with focus on clean, responsive components.
• Able to read APIs and data models; understands frontend connections to the whole system.
• Daily use of advanced AI coding tools to sharpen craft and pace.

Responsibilities

• Translate hospitality workflows into intuitive interfaces for operators.
• Define the design system and interaction patterns for Autumn from ground up.
• Prototype AI-native workflows using AI coding tools to ship prototypes to production.
• Collaborate directly with founders and operators to raise design/UX standards across the company.

Skills

Product taste

React

TypeScript

Tailwind

Frontend performance

API literacy

AI tooling awareness

Communication

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

v0

Job description

About Us

We're building the future of hotel software — an AI-Native Hotel OS that is redefining how hotels operate. We're replacing fragmented, clunky legacy systems and bloated back-office teams with an intelligent, unified platform. We've already proven strong product-market pull and have a fast-growing customer base across the US, Canada, and Mexico.

We're a seed stage company backed by Tier 1 investors (led by Bessemer Venture Partners), and moving quickly to define a new category in one of the world's largest verticals.

About the role

Design and build in one motion — taste and production code from the same person. As our founding design engineer you own product surfaces from a rough idea to shipped React, set the craft bar for everything customers touch, and turn the messy, manual work of running a hotel into interfaces that need no manual. This is not a designer-who-hands-off role and not a front-end-from-specs role; it's a founding product-builder role.

What you'll do

• Translate complex hospitality workflows — revenue, marketing, guest management, daily operations — into interfaces a busy operator understands at a glance.
• Define the design system, interaction patterns, and overall feel of Autumn as we build it from the ground up.
• Prototype AI-native workflows by driving the most advanced AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, v0) from a sketch to a working, interactive prototype in hours — then turn the best ones into real product.
• Work directly with founders and real operators with high agency and little hand-holding, and raise the quality bar for design, UX, and front-end across the company.

Requirements

• Exceptional product taste: a portfolio of shipped interfaces where you did both the design and the front-end build, and can explain why each decision was right.
• Strong front-end engineering — fluent in React / TypeScript / Tailwind and modern CSS, with real care for clean components, responsiveness, motion, and performance.
• Full-stack comfort: you don't need to be an infra engineer, but you can read APIs, data models, and product logic and see how the front end connects to the whole system.
• High agency: you take an ambiguous problem, ask the right questions, make smart assumptions, and move — you don't wait for a perfect spec.
• Genuinely AI-native: you already build with the most advanced AI coding tools daily and can show how they sharpen both your craft and your pace.
• A clear communicator who thrives on a fast-moving, in-person team and cares about business outcomes, not just UI polish.

Location

• This role is four to five days a week in person in New York City and candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.