Founding Design Engineer: Ship UI & Design System

Kyahq; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive cash & equity compensation

Health & dental insurance

Lunch & dinner

In-person energy

Job summary

Kya is seeking a founding Design Engineer to own how the product looks and feels, bridging design and frontend and shipping interfaces users love. You’ll work directly with the founders in a fast-moving, high-craft environment.

You’ll define interaction patterns for human-agent collaboration, shape the design system, and prototype aggressively to prove ideas before shipping. This role rewards hands-on builders who care about performance and aesthetics.

Qualifications

• Strong frontend skills: React, TypeScript, and modern CSS with performance awareness.
• Bias toward shipping and iterating fast, with good judgment on when to ship.
• Hands-on builder who can take ideas from concept to shipped UI without heavy handoffs.

Responsibilities

• Design and build product end to end, from interaction and visual design through to production frontend code.
• Invent patterns for human-agent collaboration: how work is surfaced, reviewed, and approved.
• Build and own the design system and component library to keep the product fast and cohesive as it grows.
• Prototype quickly to pressure-test ideas, then turn successful ones into polished features.
• Care about motion, latency, empty states, and the small moments that make software feel alive.
• Use Kya to build Kya, and translate learnings into a better product.

Skills

React

TypeScript

CSS

Frontend development

Design systems

Tools

Figma

Cursor

Claude Code

Codex

Job description

Kya is seeking a founding Design Engineer to own how the product looks and feels, bridging design and frontend and shipping interfaces users love. You’ll work directly with the founders in a fast-moving, high-craft environment.

You’ll define interaction patterns for human-agent collaboration, shape the design system, and prototype aggressively to prove ideas before shipping. This role rewards hands-on builders who care about performance and aesthetics.