Founding Design Engineer, Cardinal

Trycardinal; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Cardinal is seeking a founding design engineer to shape the entire user experience, from first impression to daily use. You will ship production UI in React/TypeScript and define how revenue agents look, feel, and behave, not just produce mockups.

You will own the intersection of product, design, and code, building a scalable design system and onboarding flows that reduce time-to-value. Expect a fast-moving, founder-led environment where speed and clarity matter.

Qualifications

• A former founder
• An early design engineer at a startup
• Someone who has designed, built, and shipped products end-to-end

Responsibilities

• Define how Cardinal feels end-to-end, from first impression to daily use
• Design and build: ship production UI, not just mockups
• Shape how people build, run, and trust revenue agents: what agents surface, when they ask for input, and how customers steer them
• Turn complex, multi-step workflows into interfaces that feel obvious

Skills

Product design

UI design

Systems thinking

High agency

Tools

React

TypeScript

Job description

Founding Design Engineer, Cardinal

About Cardinal

Cardinal is the AI revenue platform for high-growth companies.

Teams use Cardinal to build revenue agents from one connected platform. Each agent runs its own motion: research, outreach, follow-up, scheduling, and CRM syncing. Customers define who they're going after, deploy agents, see what's landing and why, and double down on what wins. Every cycle gets sharper than the last.

Founders and GTM teams tell us Cardinal replaces 7 to 10 separate tools, and for some it's the #1 driver of top-of-funnel.

• $1M ARR run rate in ~2 months
• Backed by Y Combinator
• Built by 2x YC founders (Harvard + MIT + Prod)

We're moving fast, closing top customers like Mintlify, Deepgram, Luminai, and becoming how the best GTM teams sell.

The Role

This is not a normal design role, and it's not a normal engineering role either.

As our founding design engineer, you'll:

• Define how Cardinal feels end-to-end, from first impression to daily use
• Design and build: you ship production UI, not just Figma files
• Shape how people build, run, and trust revenue agents: what agents surface, when they ask for input, and how customers steer them
• Turn complex, multi-step workflows into interfaces that feel obvious

You'll be the first person who owns the intersection of product, design, and code. Design directly shapes how fast we grow.

What You'll Do

• Own the core product flows across the platform, from 0 1 and beyond
• Design the core loop (define a list deploy agents see what's working double down) so it feels effortless and gets sharper every cycle
• Design agent behavior and interaction: how agents show their work, explain decisions, ask for input, and recover when they're wrong
• Build the UI yourself in React/TypeScript, working directly in the codebase
• Create a design system that scales as fast as we ship
• Nail onboarding and time-to-value (the first five minutes decide everything)
• Prototype fast, test with real users, and iterate weekly
• Pitch in on the site, landing pages, and growth surfaces when it matters
• Work shoulder-to-shoulder with the founders and engineers

Who You Are

We're looking for high-slope, high-agency builders who care deeply about product. Where you are today matters less than how fast you're climbing.

You might be:

• A former founder
• An early design engineer at a startup
• Someone who has designed, built, and shipped products end-to-end

You:

• Have sharp product taste and high standards
• Design and code comfortably, and think in systems
• Have strong opinions on how AI products should feel (and what most get wrong)
• Move fast and don't wait for perfect specs