Senior Design Engineer (Top of Funnel)

Mercury; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 166,600 - 208,300; Full time

Job summary

Mercury is seeking a Senior Design Engineer to enhance the visitor experience on their site, bringing design intentions to life through engineering excellence. In this collaborative role, you'll work closely with brand designers, manage animations, and extend the design system.

The ideal candidate will have strong proficiency in web technologies like HTML, CSS, React, and Next.js, and will be dedicated to maintaining high-performance user experiences. Mercury offers a competitive salary range of $166,600 to $208,300 for this role.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated engineering quality and design sensibility.
• Experience leading complex projects with multiple stakeholders.
• Fluency in HTML and CSS as creative mediums.
• Proficiency in web animation techniques across platforms.
• Experience with React and Next.js in marketing contexts.
• Able to extend design systems effectively.

Responsibilities

• Bring design intent to life with high-fidelity layouts.
• Propose web platform enhancements beyond the design spec.
• Implement animations that engage users effectively.
• Build and extend the design system for new use cases.
• Collaborate closely with brand designers as a peer.
• Set quality standards for Mercury's online presence.

Skills

HTML

CSS

React

Next.js

Web Animation

Design Systems

Tools

DatoCMS

Job description

In 1488, a thirteen-year-old named Michelangelo entered the Florence workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio as an apprentice. Ghirlandaio was the most sought-after fresco painter in the city, not because he worked alone, but because he didn’t. His bottega was built around a precise division of attention: Ghirlandaio established the composition, the figures, the light. Trusted collaborators carried the work forward, applying the final glazes, rendering the faces, bringing the surface to life. The paintings you see today in Santa Maria Novella are the product of both. You can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. That was the point.

The Top of Funnel team owns the introduction to a company that believes design is how you show people you take them seriously. We’re looking for a Senior Design Engineer who works the way Ghirlandaio’s bottega did: close enough to the creative process to carry it forward, and skilled enough to know the difference between almost right and actually right.

What you’ll do

You’ll be joining a product-led growth team that works across the logged out Mercury.com site, supporting stakeholders across the organization that want to share something with the world.

• Bring design intent to life. Our brand designers work at high velocity, producing considered, high-fidelity layouts. Your job is to carry that work forward, with enough taste to honor the intention and enough craft to make it feel native to the web.
• Bring the web platform to the table, not just the design spec. You’ll surface what’s newly possible in browsers, propose enhancements that design didn’t know to ask for, and advocate for approaches that make experiences feel alive rather than translated from a static file.
• Implement animation and interaction that earns attention. Product launches, campaign pages, and editorial moments require more than accurate layouts. They require pacing, motion, and detail; you’ll own that layer.
• Build and extend the design system. The web site’s design system is both the guardrail and the creative toolbox. You’ll identify when a component needs to stretch to cover a new use case, and build those extensions in a way that fits rather than fights the system.
• Work directly with brand designers and marketing as a peer. This isn’t an execution role, it’s a creative partner role. You’ll be in the room during concepting, not just receiving tickets at the end.
• Set the quality bar for Mercury’s front door. You’ll have a point of view about what exceptional looks like on the web, and the mandate to advocate for it.

The ideal candidate

• Has a portfolio of crafted work that demonstrates both engineering quality and design sensibility.
• Has been the technical lead of complex projects with many stakeholders with a track record of success.
• Has deep command of HTML and CSS as a creative medium, not just a layout tool. You know what the platform can do and you stay current on what’s new.
• Is fluent in the web animation stack — from CSS transitions to GSAP to the Web Animations API — and knows which tool fits which problem. Understands that motion on the web is a performance concern as much as a design one.
• Is proficient in React and Next.js, particularly in a content-heavy, pre-rendered marketing context.
• Has experience working within and extending a design system, with pragmatic opinions about when to use what’s there vs. when to build something new.
• Has worked closely with brand designers or creative directors in previous roles and knows how to navigate strong design opinions.
• Cares about performance as an extension of craft: a slow or janky interaction isn’t just a technical problem, it’s a design failure.
• Has experience with DatoCMS or a comparable headless CMS.

The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity (stock options/RSUs), and benefits. Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly using the most reliable compensation survey data for our industry. New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.

Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are the following:

• US employees (any location): $166,600 - $208,300
• Canadian employees (any location): CAD 157,400 - 196,800

Mercury values diversity & belonging and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All individuals seeking employment at Mercury are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristic. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for applicants with disabilities or special needs. If you need assistance, or an accommodation, please let your recruiter know once you are contacted about a role.