Senior Design Engineer

Vannevar Labs; United States; Remote; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative firm is seeking a senior design engineer to bridge design and engineering. This role is pivotal in shaping the design system and crafting user experiences that enhance national security. You'll collaborate across teams to prototype features and maintain high standards of performance and usability. If you're passionate about impactful solutions and thrive in a remote-first culture, this is the perfect opportunity for you. Join a dynamic team committed to excellence and innovation, where your contributions will make a significant difference.

Benefits

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Unlimited PTO

Lifestyle stipends

Salary top-up during military reserve duty

Fully paid parental leave

Child and pet care reimbursement during travel

WeWork access for remote employees

Qualifications

• 5+ years in design and engineering with proven project delivery.
• Strong portfolio showcasing interaction and visual design excellence.

Responsibilities

• Shape and evolve the design system for scalable product needs.
• Write clean, reusable code in React and TypeScript for user interfaces.

Skills

React

TypeScript

Figma

CSS

User Experience Design

Systems Thinking

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Design or Engineering

Portfolio demonstrating design skills

Tools

Figma

GitHub

Job description

Our mission is to be the technology backbone for strategic competition against peer adversaries. These missions – including intelligence, information operations, special activities, and perception management – are happening today and their success or failure will determine if we go to war tomorrow.

We've been on the front lines of these missions since 2019, and have grown to support a wide range of missions across all US service branches, multiple combatant commands, partner nations, interagency stakeholders, and the intelligence community. We deploy both hardware and software products to support people on the front lines that span collection, planning / assessments, and effects.

We've grown from $3M in run-rate revenue in 2021 to $80M in run-rate revenue today. We've been profitable since 2022 and have raised $91M in venture capital funding through Series B. We're valued at $1.5B as of 2025.

About the role

We're looking for our first senior or staff-level design engineer to thread the important needle between design and engineering. Yes, we know we're looking for a unicorn – someone who can both design effectively and write production-quality code. This rare combination of skills is essential as we scale our products and establish design patterns that will influence our work for years to come. You'll join our design team and report directly to our Head of Design. If you're passionate about building robust design systems and crafting code that brings great user experiences to life while making a meaningful impact on national security, we want to hear from you.

What you'll do

• Shape the Design System: Own and evolve our design system to ensure it scales with our growing product needs, while maintaining consistency and usability across all platforms.
• Front-end development: Write clean, reusable code in React and TypeScript, building components that will be used by every engineer (setting the standard for frontend development) and visible across customer-facing products.
• Write great documentation: Write component and pattern guideline documentation that is clear and helps our team move fast with cohesion.
• Collaborate across teams: Partner with design, product, and engineering teams to turn product concepts into well-executed, high-performing user interfaces.
• Prototype and iterate: Work quickly to prototype new features and interactions in design and code, testing ideas before full implementation.
• Design and Build Special Projects: You might collaborate with Brand design on bringing to life an exciting new microsite or build and maintain tools that enhance the efficiency and collaboration of our teams.
• Maintain High Standards: Focus on performance, accessibility, and usability, ensuring that all products not only meet technical requirements but also deliver exceptional user experiences.

What we look for

• Proven Experience: 5+ years of engineering and/or product design experience with a track record of designing, building, and shipping great work.
• Strong Portfolio: An online portfolio that demonstrates excellence in interaction design, visual design, and systematic thinking. Point us to your latest project, drop us a link to your github, or link us to your personal site—we care less about the shape of your portfolio but need to see the work you’ve done and impact it has generated.
• Technical Skills: Proficiency with both design tools (like Figma) and front-end technologies (React, TypeScript, and CSS), with the ability to move fluidly between design and development. You will need to pass a frontend coding interview.
• Strategic Mindset: Ability to balance user needs, business goals, and technical constraints while maintaining focus on mission impact. You know when to jump into code or design to solve a problem.
• Systems Thinker: Proven ability to create scalable design systems and patterns.
• Collaborative Leader: Outstanding communication skills with experience influencing stakeholders and mentoring others.
• Autonomous Driver: Self-motivated with the ability to manage multiple projects while maintaining attention to detail.
• Mission Focused: Passionate about creating impactful solutions for national security challenges.
• Security Clearance: Must be able to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI security clearance. Active clearance is a plus.

What we offer

We’re proud to offer competitive benefits that support our employees. Some key highlights of our benefits package include:

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 100% remote first culture. You can work from anywhere in the US and all full time employees have WeWork access
• Unlimited PTO including competitive vacation and holiday schedules
• Lifestyle stipends - Monthly mental health, wellness & fitness stipend, in-home office setup stipend and family planning assistance
• Salary top-up during military reserve duty
• Fully paid parental leave
• Child and pet care reimbursement during travel

Vannevar Labs is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status.

We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply, even if you don't feel like you're a perfect fit. If you're passionate about contributing to our mission, we'd love to hear from you!

IMPORTANT NOTICE
We are committed to protecting the privacy of all applicants. Official emails from the company will come from an @vannevarlabs.com domain. Under no circumstances will a legitimate representative from our company contact you to request passwords, financial information, or other sensitive personal data. Please be vigilant of potential scams.

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