Founding Designer

Lightsage; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Lightsage is seeking a Founding Designer to define the product experience and visual language across agent analytics, API performance, content optimization, and customer-facing recommendations. You will work with the founders, engineers, and customers to translate complex workflows into clear, usable products, conducting user research, mapping flows, and prototyping.

This hands-on role spans strategy, interaction and visual design, design systems, onboarding, data visualizations, and

Qualifications

• 2–3 years of product design experience in early-stage or high-growth B2B software.
• Portfolio showing end-to-end ownership of complex product experiences.
• Ability to take ambiguous problems from discovery through prototyping and launch.
• Strong interaction and visual design skills with a systems approach to information architecture and design systems.
• Experience in analytics, data visualization, APIs, or technical workflows.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with cross-functional teams.
• High ownership and dependable execution in a startup environment.

Responsibilities

• Conduct user research and map workflows to inform design direction.
• Design and prototype product experiences across analytics and APIs.
• Build and maintain a scalable design system.
• Collaborate closely with engineering through implementation.
• Shape onboarding, data visualizations, and reporting.
• Communicate insights effectively to technical and business users.

Skills

Product design

Portfolio

Discovery to prototyping

Interaction design

Design systems

Data visualization

Customer research

Communication

Startup experience

Job description

Company Description

Lightsage builds infrastructure for the emerging agent economy, helping organizations track, benchmark, and improve how coding agents discover and use their APIs, CLIs, and MCP integrations. The platform is used by enterprises and high-growth startups to become the default tools recommended by software agents. Lightsage focuses on agent experience and measurable impact on developer and product adoption, with more information available at lightsage.com. The team also created DevToolArena.com, a public benchmark that ranks developer tools across areas such as authentication, inference, and voice using Claude Code and Codex.

Role Description

As the Founding Designer at Lightsage, you will define the product experience and visual language across agent analytics, API performance, content optimization, and customer-facing recommendations. You will work directly with the founders, engineers, and customers to turn complex technical workflows into clear, intuitive products. Your day-to-day work will include conducting user research, mapping workflows, designing and prototyping product experiences, building a scalable design system, and partnering closely with engineering through implementation. You will also shape onboarding, data visualizations, reporting, and the way Lightsage communicates insights to technical and business users. This role requires a hands-on product designer who is comfortable moving between product strategy, interaction design, visual design, research, and execution. Previous experience in the agent or AI market is not required. Experience designing technical B2B products, developer tools, analytics, APIs, or data-intensive workflows is more important.

Qualifications

• 2–3 years of product design experience, ideally in early-stage or high-growth B2B software.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating end-to-end ownership of complex product experiences.
• Experience taking ambiguous problems from discovery through prototyping, launch, and iteration.
• Strong interaction and visual design skills, with a systems-oriented approach to information architecture and design systems.
• Experience designing analytics, data visualization, developer tools, APIs, or technical workflows.
• Ability to conduct customer research and translate technical and business requirements into clear product decisions.
• Strong written and verbal communication and close collaboration with engineering and product teams.
• High ownership, dependable execution, and comfort operating in an early-stage startup.

This is a full-time, on-site role based in San Francisco, CA, with significant ownership and direct influence over Lightsage's product and brand direction.