Founding Design Engineer

Jinba (YC W26); San Francisco (CA); On-site; Full time

Job summary

A leading software company in San Francisco is seeking a Design Engineer to create a comprehensive design system and own the UI/UX for its platform. The role requires proficiency in React and TypeScript, with a strong focus on product design and motion graphics. As the first dedicated design hire, you will shape user interactions with AI-native software. The ideal candidate will have experience in building design systems and a passion for creating intuitive workflows.

Qualifications

• Strong product design sense with a portfolio showing end-to-end ownership.
• Experience building or significantly contributing to a design system.
• Proficient in React/TypeScript.

Responsibilities

• Design and build the design system: components, tokens, and documentation.
• Own UI/UX for core product surfaces, from concept through implementation.
• Collaborate directly with engineering to ship features.

Skills

Product design

Motion design

Frontend code

UI/UX design

React

TypeScript

Tools

shadcn/ui

Radix

Job description

Design engineer who owns the full visual and interactive experience of Jinba's platform. You'll build our design system from the ground up, create motion that makes complex workflows feel intuitive, and ship production code alongside the engineering team. This is a founding design role for someone who wants to shape how enterprise users interact with AI-native software.

Responsibilities

• Design and build Jinba's design system: components, tokens, patterns, and documentation
• Own UI/UX for core product surfaces, from concept through implementation
• Create motion design that guides users through workflow creation and execution
• Write clean, maintainable frontend code (we use shadcn/ui and modern React patterns)
• Collaborate directly with engineering to ship features, not just hand off specs
• Establish design processes and standards as the first dedicated design hire

Requirements

Design Skills

• Strong product design sense with portfolio showing end-to-end ownership
• Experience building or significantly contributing to a design system
• Motion design ability: you understand timing, easing, and how animation communicates state

Technical Ability

• Proficient in React/TypeScript; you ship your own designs
• Familiar with component libraries like shadcn/ui, Radix, or similar
• Understanding of design tokens, CSS architecture, and scalable frontend patterns

Product Context

• Experience with developer tools, no-code platforms, or workflow/automation products
• Comfort designing complex interfaces: canvas editors, drag-and-drop builders, multi-step flows
• Ability to simplify dense functionality without dumbing it down

Strong Signals

• Design engineer or founding designer roles at early-stage startups
• Experience at companies like Figma, Linear, Notion, Retool, Vercel, or similar dev/productivity tools
• Built a design system from scratch at a growing company
• Background combining design and engineering

Mindset

• Generalist: you'd rather own the whole surface than perfect one component forever
• Opinionated but collaborative: you have strong taste and can articulate why
• Early-stage ready: you're excited by ambiguity and building foundations others will use