Founding Designer

Phonely

San Francisco (CA)

On-site

USD 140,000 - 230,000

Full time

4 days ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Full health and dental coverage

401(k) with 4% match

Unlimited PTO

Meaningful equity

Wellness stipend

Race/tournament stipend

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner provided

Annual offsites in Costa Rica, TheRock

Job summary

Phonely in San Francisco, CA, seeks a Founding Designer to own how Phonely looks, feels, and works across brand and product. You’ll audit, define visual identity, and build scalable design systems that bring consistency as we scale.

You’ll work directly with founders and engineers to bring designs into production, using AI tools like Claude, contributing to frontend code when needed, and shaping design direction with real ownership.

Qualifications

3+ years of professional design experience in B2B SaaS or technology.
Exceptional visual design portfolio across brand and digital products.
Experience building or maintaining design systems and establishing standards.
Strong command of UI/UX, typography, layout, color and visual hierarchy.
Experience designing web applications and collaborating with frontend engineers.
Ability to own design projects from concept through implementation.
Comfort with AI tools and learning new technologies to move faster.
High ownership in a fast-moving startup with an evolving playbook.

Responsibilities

Audit existing brand and product design, fix inconsistencies, and establish a cohesive identity.
Own and evolve branding: typography, color, layout, guidelines, and overall direction.
Build and maintain a scalable design system with reusable components.
Bring frontend platform consistency to all customer-facing screens.
Design intuitive interfaces for complex voice AI workflows.
Collaborate with frontend engineers to implement designs and improve UX.
Use AI tools to translate guidelines into code and standardize implementation.
Contribute to codebase with frontend improvements and PRs.
Maintain brand consistency across website, product, and marketing assets.
Set the foundation for how design operates at Phonely as we grow.

Skills

Brand design

UI/UX design

Design systems

B2B SaaS

Frontend collaboration

Tools

HTML

CSS

React

GitHub

Job description

Founding Designer

San Francisco, CA | On-site | Full-time

Compensation: $140,000–$230,000

About Phonely

At some point in the future, every business will answer their phone with voice AI. We are building the platform that makes it possible.

Phonely builds conversational voice AI agents for high-volume phone workflows. Our customers use us to qualify leads, book appointments, route calls, and resolve real customer conversations in production. We are growing fast and just getting started.

About the Role

We’re hiring a Founding Designer to own how Phonely looks, feels, and works across our brand and product.

As our first design hire, you’ll audit our existing design, define our visual identity, and build the systems that bring consistency to everything we create. From our website and branding to the frontend platform our customers use every day, you’ll establish the design standards that shape Phonely as we scale.

This isn’t a role where you hand off Figma files and call it a day. You’ll work directly with our founders and engineers to bring designs into production, using AI tools like Claude to help implement design standards and contributing to frontend code when needed.

We’re looking for someone with exceptional design taste who can think strategically, execute independently, and build something that lasts. You’ll have real ownership over our design direction and the freedom to define what great design looks like at Phonely.

What You’ll Do

Audit our existing brand and product design, find the inconsistencies, and establish a cohesive visual identity
Own and evolve our branding: typography, color, layout, visual guidelines, and overall direction
Build and maintain a scalable design system with reusable components and standards
Bring consistency to our frontend platform so every customer-facing screen follows the same principles
Design intuitive, polished interfaces that make complex voice AI workflows easy to understand
Work directly with frontend engineers to implement designs and improve the product experience
Use AI development tools like Claude to translate design guidelines into code and standardize implementation
Contribute to the codebase when needed, including frontend improvements and pull requests
Maintain brand consistency across our website, product, marketing materials, and customer-facing assets
Set the foundation for how design operates at Phonely as we grow

What You’ll Bring

3+ years of professional design experience, ideally in B2B SaaS, technology, or a design-forward company
Exceptional visual design skills and a portfolio showing high-quality work across brand and digital product
Experience building or maintaining design systems and establishing consistent standards
Strong command of UI/UX, typography, layout, color, and visual hierarchy
Experience designing web applications and working closely with frontend engineering teams
Ability to own design projects from initial concept through implementation
Comfort with AI tools and learning new technologies to move faster
Strong attention to detail and the ability to explain and defend design decisions
High ownership and comfort in a fast-moving startup where the playbook doesn’t exist yet

Nice to Have

Previous experience as a Founding Designer or early design hire at a startup
Experience at a company recognized for exceptional design quality
Background designing B2B SaaS platforms or complex web applications
Hands-on frontend experience with HTML, CSS, React, or similar
Experience working with GitHub, contributing code, and submitting pull requests
Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools such as Claude
Experience defining or evolving a company’s brand identity from the ground up

Why Join Phonely

We are a team of ex-athletes, founders, and builders who are deeply passionate about the problem we’re solving. We’re a curious, driven, low-ego group that finds joy in hard challenges. As we grow the team, we are being extremely intentional about the culture we’re building. We care far less about a person’s pedigree than we do about finding smart people with grit and genuine kindness. If this resonates with you,

Benefits