Design Engineer

Crossing Hurdles is a global recruitment firm partnering with a fast-growing, design-forward AI startup transforming how teams capture, understand, and act on conversations.

The company is building a next-generation platform that turns meetings, calls, and conversations into structured, searchable, and actionable knowledge. From AI-powered meeting notes to intelligent action tracking and context retrieval, the platform is designed to become the source of truth for everything discussed across an organization.

Founded by experienced operators from companies like Stripe, Twitter, and Microsoft, the company is backed by Y Combinator, profitable, and growing rapidly with thousands of paying customers. With a strong product-market fit and early traction, the team is scaling at a critical inflection point where design and frontend excellence directly impact user experience, engagement, and retention.

Role: Design Engineer (IC)

Compensation: $150K $240K base equity

Location: On-site (5 days/week in San Francisco)

Experience: 2 5 years in Design Engineering / Product Design Frontend

Platform: Web-first with expanding surfaces (desktop apps, mobile apps, AI interfaces)

About The Role

• Own the end-to-end product experience from concept to production, combining design thinking with high-quality frontend execution.
• Design and build intuitive, elegant, and high-performance user interfaces across web, desktop, and mobile platforms.
• Craft delightful interactions, animations, and transitions that make the product feel fast, responsive, and alive.
• Collaborate directly with founders and engineers to shape product direction, not just execution.
• Translate ambiguous user problems into clear UX flows, interaction patterns, and pixel-perfect UI implementations.
• Continuously improve onboarding, navigation, and core product flows to enhance clarity, usability, and engagement.
• Build and evolve a scalable design system to ensure consistency and speed as the product grows.
• Ship fast, iterate often, and take full ownership of features without traditional design-engineering handoffs.
• Operate as a hands-on IC in a small, highly collaborative, and high-agency team environment.

Requirements

• 2 5 years of experience in a Design Engineer, Product Designer (with coding), or Frontend-focused design role.
• Strong portfolio showcasing both design thinking and frontend implementation (React or similar frameworks).
• Proficiency in modern design and development tools such as Figma, React, Tailwind CSS, or equivalent.
• Strong understanding of UX principles, interaction design, and visual design systems.
• Experience building polished, production-ready interfaces with attention to detail and performance.
• Comfort working in fast-paced startup environments with high ownership and minimal structure.
• Ability to collaborate closely with engineers and take features from idea to shipped product.
• Strong product sense with an eye for aesthetics, usability, and user delight.
• Passion for crafting beautiful, intuitive, and impactful user experiences.

Why You Should Consider This Opportunity

• Own the product surface end-to-end where your design decisions directly impact user experience and product adoption.
• Work alongside experienced founders and engineers from top-tier companies building cutting-edge AI products.
• Join at an early stage with strong traction, real users, and meaningful product-market fit.
• High autonomy, fast execution, and minimal bureaucracy.
• Design-forward culture with a strong emphasis on craft, detail, and user experience.
• Opportunity to shape how modern teams interact with AI-powered tools and workflows.
• Build products that redefine how organizations capture and use knowledge.