Design Engineer, Product (Senior/Staff) (d/f/m)

Personio GmbH; München, Berlin; Hybrid; USD 69,662 - 98,688; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary package

28 days paid vacation

Fully paid Impact Day

Generous family leave

Mental health support

Catered lunches and snacks

Job summary

Personio GmbH is looking for a Design Engineer to elevate the quality and consistency of their software products. This role will involve collaborating with design and engineering teams to create user-friendly products, contributing to design systems, and leveraging AI in design processes.

Based in Germany, candidates should have strong front-end development skills and a flair for UX design. Benefit from 28 days of paid vacation, mental health support, and flexible work options.

Qualifications

• Strong technical proficiency in front-end development with UX sensibility.
• Hands-on experience with design systems and component libraries.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted design and prototyping tools.
• Proven experience creating reusable frameworks for design and engineering collaboration.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate across functions and groups effectively.

Responsibilities

• Steward and improve the design system by building high-quality components.
• Uplevel product cohesion by identifying design consistency gaps.
• Collaborate with product teams on high-priority features.
• Contribute to and evolve the Design Engineering discipline at Personio.

Skills

Front-end development (React, Typescript, CSS)

Familiarity with NextJs

Experience with design systems

Comfort with AI-assisted design tools

Collaborative abilities

Job description

Personio's intelligent HR platform helps small and medium-sized organizations unlock the power of people by making complicated, time‑constrained tasks simple and efficient. Our team of 1,500 Personios is building user‑friendly products that delight our 15,000+ customers and their 1.5 million employees. Ready to make an impact from day one?

This role requires 2 days per week in the office and is based in Munich/Berlin/London.

As a Design Engineer at Personio, you will sit at the intersection of design craft and technical execution, bridging the gap between how we imagine our product and how it gets built. You will be a key force in elevating the quality, consistency, and velocity of our product experiences, working as part of our Design Infrastructure team, while also working across product teams on highest‑priority initiatives.

You will build the UI components, infrastructure and systems that empowers designers to work closer to code with consistency, contribute to high‑priority product experiences that touch every customer, and help create AI‑powered tooling that automates repetitive front‑end work. As an early member of a newly‑formalized discipline at Personio, you will help define what great Design Engineering looks like — and set the bar for those who follow.

What You’ll Do

• Steward and improve the design system by building and maintaining high‑quality, accessible, and performant components and patterns that are used consistently across Personio’s product surfaces.
• Uplevel cohesion in the product by spotting gaps in consistency across the product, connecting disparate projects, and building reusable patterns and frameworks that scale.
• Contribute to high‑priority product features by embedding with product teams to deliver UX features and systems that benefit a wide reach of customers.
• Collaborate across disciplines — maintaining a close relationship with both design and engineering to stay aligned on platform priorities, developer experience, and the evolving standards that govern design–engineering handoff.
• Contribute to our Product & Technology culture by bringing technical perspective into design conversations, and design perspective to engineering, mentoring designers on front‑end concepts, and helping the org think more fluently about code and design together.
• Build AI‑powered design tooling and workflows that move designers closer to code through high fidelity prototyping and live production edits.
• Help define and evolve the Design Engineering discipline at Personio — contributing to career expectations, playbooks, and processes as this practice matures.

What You Need To Succeed

• Technical proficiency in front‑end development (React, Typescript, CSS) combined with strong UX sensibility and product instincts. Should have familiarity with NextJs, monorepos, UI testing, performance considerations and accessibility. Preference for experience with Vercel, Microfrontends and Motion.
• Hands‑on experience with design systems, including building and scaling component libraries, tokens, and patterns adopted by multiple teams.
• Comfort with AI‑assisted design and prototyping tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude), and a track record of using these to accelerate design‑to‑code workflows. Preference for familiarity of the Claude ecosystem and agentic development workflows.
• Experience creating reusable frameworks, tooling, or processes that improve how design and engineering teams work together and that are adopted beyond their original context.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across functions — working fluidly with designers, product managers, and engineers, and communicating at the intersection of both disciplines.
• An eye for craft and consistency, with the drive to proactively identify quality gaps and take initiative to address them across the product.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, with the self‑direction to define your own scope, navigate undefined spaces, and bring clarity to cross‑functional challenges.

Why Personio

Personio is an equal opportunities employer, committed to building an integrative culture where everyone feels welcomed and supported. We embrace uniqueness and understand that our diverse, values‑driven culture makes us stronger. We are proud to have an inclusive workplace environment that will foster your development no matter your gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, education level, or race.

Benefits

• Receive a competitive reward package – reevaluated each year – that includes salary, benefits, and pre‑IPO equity.
• Enjoy 28 days of paid vacation, plus an additional day after 2 and 4 years.
• Make an impact on the environment and society with 1 fully paid Impact Day.
• Receive generous family leave, child support, mental health support (including 24 sessions per year with Oli for yourself and 10 sessions for a significant other), and sabbatical opportunities.
• We enjoy gathering for meals, cultural initiatives, and events like local Summer Sessions and year‑end celebrations. There’s also healthy snacks, drinks, and a weekly catered lunch.