Design Technologist

Mithrl; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

PPO health coverage through Anthem

401(k)

Competitive equity

Job summary

A leading biotech startup in San Francisco is seeking a Design Technologist to bridge design, engineering, and AI. In this role, you will work closely with product designers to create elegant, functional products for researchers. Candidates should have over 5 years of experience in product design or frontend engineering, with expertise in React, TypeScript, and CSS. Our design-first culture prioritizes impactful work in drug discovery, offering a dynamic environment and comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in product design or frontend engineering.
• Experience in design technology, prototyping, or design-centric product development.
• Understanding of information density, data visualization, and scientific workflows.

Responsibilities

• Bridge Design and Code with product designers.
• Own Complex Frontend Surfaces for demanding product areas.
• Build Advanced Prototypes using real biological data.
• Shape Architectural Decisions in UI architecture.
• Establish Patterns for UI design system.
• Evolve the robust design system with reusable components.
• Innovate with AI to enhance design-to-code pipeline.
• Collaborate Cross-Functionally with engineering and product leaders.

Skills

Frontend expert (React, TypeScript, CSS)

Strong foundation in visual and interaction design

Intellectual engagement with biology domain

Product thinking and user experience advocacy

Job description

About Mithrl

We imagine a world where new medicines reach patients in months, not years, and where scientific breakthroughs happen at the speed of thought.

Mithrl is building the world's first commercially available AI Co-Scientist for drug discovery. Our platform transforms messy biological data into insights in minutes. Scientists ask questions in natural language, and Mithrl responds with real analysis, novel targets, hypotheses, and patent-ready reports.

Our knowledge graph platform sits at the intersection of ontology, machine learning, and scientific reasoning. It ingests unstructured literature, clinical trial data, and proprietary datasets, mapping them onto a structured biological knowledge layer that our R&D Decision Engine queries in real time.

Design is not an afterthought at Mithrl. Our first hire was a designer. We are a design-first company building at the frontier of applied AI, and we treat the interface between scientists and data as one of the hardest and most important problems we have.

Our customers are building some of the most important drugs in the world:

• 12X year-over-year revenue growth
• Driving real breakthroughs from target discovery to patient outcomes
• Enterprise Success: We currently serve 8 of the top 20 global research giants, counting industry leaders like J&J and Roche as part of our early Enterprise customers (historically unprecedented for any startup)

About the Role

As a Design Technologist at Mithrl, you will sit at the intersection of design, engineering, and artificial intelligence. This is a high-impact individual contributor role where you will bridge what is possible with what is usable.

You will work directly with our Design Leads and collaborate daily with our Head of Product, engineers, and scientists. You are not just building interfaces. You are defining how researchers at the world's largest pharmaceutical companies interact with one of the most complex biological knowledge systems ever built.

This is a role for a builder who has deep visual craft and deep technical fluency, and knows how to use both at the same time.

What You Will Do

• Bridge Design and Code: Partner closely with a small team of product designers to transform high-level concepts into elegant, functional products used by thousands of researchers every day.
• Own Complex Frontend Surfaces: Lead frontend initiatives for our most technically demanding product areas, including knowledge graph visualizations, ontology explorers, and AI-native query interfaces.
• Build Advanced Prototypes: Create high-fidelity, interactive prototypes that leverage real biological data and APIs to test complex interactions and AI-driven workflows. Your prototypes need to hold up under production conditions.
• Shape Architectural Decisions: Participate in technical planning, code reviews, and ongoing platform evolution. You will influence how we think about our UI architecture across EOS (our enterprise product) and Finn (our self-serve platform).
• Establish Patterns: Lead frontend initiatives that set the standard for our UI design system, ensuring our product remains performant, accessible, and scalable across both products.
• Evolve Our Design System: Contribute to and maintain a robust design system. Develop reusable components that ensure visual and brand consistency across our entire platform.
• Innovate with AI: Experiment with emerging AI tools and techniques to accelerate our design-to-code pipeline. We use AI aggressively in our own internal workflows and expect you to push what is possible here.
• Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Work closely with engineering and product leaders to ensure that design intent is preserved from discovery through deployment.

What You Will Bring

• Technical Excellence: You are a frontend expert (React, TypeScript, CSS) who views code as a creative medium. You have a track record of leading complex frontend projects and influencing technical roadmaps.
• Design Craft: You have a strong foundation in visual and interaction design and you apply these with a high degree of intentionality. You understand information density, data visualization, and scientific workflows.
• Domain Curiosity: You do not need a biology degree, but you need to care about the problem. Building interfaces on top of protein-protein interaction networks, biomarker data, and ontology graphs requires genuine intellectual engagement with the domain.
• Experience: 5+ years in product design or frontend engineering, with a significant focus on design technology, prototyping, or building design-centric products at scale.
• Startup Mindset: You are comfortable working from first principles in a fast-paced environment. You ship fast, iterate, and do not wait for perfect requirements.
• Product Thinking: You do not just build what is on the roadmap. You understand the why behind features and advocate for the best end-to-end user experience.

What You Will Love at Mithrl

• Team: Join a tight-knit, talent-dense team of engineers, scientists, and builders. We are about 22 people and every person here is exceptional at what they do.
• Design-First Culture: Our first hire was a designer. Design has a seat at every table here, including architecture reviews, product strategy, and customer conversations.
• Real Scientific Impact: Your work is directly used by researchers at J&J, Roche, Lilly, and more, on programs that matter. This is not an enterprise SaaS dashboard. This is drug discovery infrastructure.
• Speed: We ship twice a week and improve continuously based on real user feedback.
• Location: Beautiful SF office with a high-energy, in-person culture.
• Benefits: Comprehensive PPO health coverage through Anthem (medical, dental, vision), 401(k), and competitive equity.