Founding design engineer

Serova; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Serova is hiring its first designer to build the brand, design system, and production-ready interfaces. You will own design from concept to code, shipping website, components, and internal tools.

This role blends design and engineering, requiring fast delivery without a rigid spec, with high autonomy and curiosity about biology.

Qualifications

• 2+ years designing software.
• A portfolio or other examples of work you've shipped.
• Based in the San Francisco Bay Area or London, or willing to relocate.
• Authorized to work in the US or UK, or a realistic path to get there.

Responsibilities

• Own design at Serova from brand to production, shipping end-to-end.
• Build a component library and design system that everything else is built on.
• Create internal tools and dashboards to make complex data easy to use.

Skills

Designing software

Full-stack coding

Portfolio delivery

Job description

About Serova

Serova builds personalized cancer vaccines. Each vaccine is made for the individual patient from their own samples and given in partnership with their treating physician. We're a small team building our software and brand from scratch, and design is how patients, physicians and our own scientists experience Serova.

The role

We're hiring our first designer, and we want one who builds. With tools like Claude Code, one person can now design and ship our website, our component library and the internal apps our team runs on. That's this job.

You'll own design at Serova from brand to product, and you'll take your work all the way to production yourself.

What you'll work on

• Our website and brand
• A component library and design system that everything else is built on
• Internal tools and dashboards that make complex scientific and patient data easy to use

Who you are

• A designer with real taste who also writes code
• You ship fast and work well without a spec or someone managing you
• High agency, friendly and low ego
• Curious about biology. No science background needed.

Requirements

• 2+ years designing software
• A portfolio or other examples of work you've shipped
• Based in the San Francisco Bay Area or London, or willing to relocate
• Authorized to work in the US or UK, or a realistic path to get there

What will make you stand out

• You write code, ideally fullstack. If you're an exceptional designer who's happy to build with AI tools, we'd still like to hear from you.
• You've built a design system or component library
• You've designed scientific or data-heavy interfaces such as dashboards, visualizations or tooling over complex data
• You've designed a brand or a marketing site
• You've shipped consumer-facing or design-led products that real people used
• You've been a founder or one of the first 10 employees somewhere, even if it didn't work out

Details

• Location: Hybrid in San Francisco, or in person in London
• Type: Full-time