Job description

ABOUT THE ROLE Design engineer who owns the full visual and interactive experience of Jinba's platform. You'll build our design system from the ground up, create motion that makes complex workflows feel intuitive, and ship production code alongside the engineering team. This is a founding design role for someone who wants to shape how enterprise users interact with AI-native software. RESPONSIBILITIES - Design and build Jinba's design system: components, tokens, patterns, and documentation - Own UI/UX for core product surfaces, from concept through implementation - Create motion design that guides users through workflow creation and execution - Write clean, maintainable frontend code (we use shadcn/ui and modern React patterns) - Collaborate directly with engineering to ship features, not just hand off specs - Establish design processes and standards as the first dedicated design hire REQUIREMENTS DESIGN SKILLS - Strong product design sense with portfolio showing end-to-end ownership - Experience building or significantly contributing to a design system - Motion design ability: you understand timing, easing, and how animation communicates state TECHNICAL ABILITY - Proficient in React/TypeScript; you ship your own designs - Familiar with component libraries like shadcn/ui, Radix, or similar - Understanding of design tokens, CSS architecture, and scalable frontend patterns PRODUCT CONTEXT - Experience with developer tools, no-code platforms, or workflow/automation products - Comfort designing complex interfaces: canvas editors, drag-and-drop builders, multi-step flows - Ability to simplify dense functionality without dumbing it down STRONG SIGNALS - Design engineer or founding designer roles at early-stage startups - Experience at companies like Figma, Linear, Notion, Retool, Vercel, or similar dev/productivity tools - Built a design system from scratch at a growing company - Background combining design and engineering MINDSET - Generalist: you'd rather own the whole surface than perfect one component forever - Opinionated but collaborative: you have strong taste and can articulate why - Early-stage ready: you're excited by ambiguity and building foundations others will use ABOUT JINBA We help large enterprises build automated workflows using plain English. Unlike traditional no-code tools that bolt a chat agent onto their interface, Jinba is built as a native vibe coding platform from the ground up. YC W26. International team across SF and Tokyo. Growing fast with major enterprise contracts.

Requirements

Must-haves

Design and build Jinba's design system: components, tokens, patterns, and documentation
Own UI/UX for core product surfaces, from concept through implementation
Create motion design that guides users through workflow creation and execution
Write clean, maintainable frontend code (we use shadcn/ui and modern React patterns)
Collaborate directly with engineering to ship features, not just hand off specs
Establish design processes and standards as the first dedicated design hire
Strong product design sense with portfolio showing end-to-end ownership
Experience building or significantly contributing to a design system
Motion design ability: you understand timing, easing, and how animation communicates state
Proficient in React/TypeScript; you ship your own designs
Familiar with component libraries like shadcn/ui, Radix, or similar
Understanding of design tokens, CSS architecture, and scalable frontend patterns
Experience with developer tools, no-code platforms, or workflow/automation products
Comfort designing complex interfaces: canvas editors, drag-and-drop builders, multi-step flows
Ability to simplify dense functionality without dumbing it down
Design engineer or founding designer roles at early-stage startups
Experience at companies like Figma, Linear, Notion, Retool, Vercel, or similar dev/productivity tools
Built a design system from scratch at a growing company
Background combining design and engineering
Generalist: you'd rather own the whole surface than perfect one component forever
Opinionated but collaborative: you have strong taste and can articulate why
Early-stage ready: you're excited by ambiguity and building foundations others will use

Nice-to-haves

None flagged.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

design systemaireacttypescriptfigma

Platform: ashby
Effort: quick