UX Engineer

Tyto Athene is searching for a UX Engineer to raise the design and interaction standard across our entire portfolio of capabilities. This is a horizontal role supporting all of TALON, Tyto’s Acceleration Lab for Operational Needs. You will work across practices rather than inside one - prototyping new directions, polishing what exists, and building the shared visual and interaction foundation our products lean on. This position will be the glue between design and engineering across the portfolio. We are looking for someone who is bi-lingual in pixels and pointers, moving between Figma and code without translation cost. In this role, your output is working artifacts - prototypes that shape product decisions, demos that win customer meetings and board approval, and components that other engineers build on.

This role will work with modern AI tools as a force multiplier. You will use them to prototype faster, explore more directions, and ship at a quality level that wasn't possible two years ago. We expect you to set the bar for AI-augmented design and frontend practice across TALON, not just for yourself. This role exists because our products are too important and our audiences too discerning - operators, customers, executives, and investors alike - for design and interaction quality that is outdated and inconsistent. We are looking for someone who will be the person who sets and holds the standard.

Responsibilities:

• Build high-fidelity, interactive prototypes in React and TypeScript to validate product directions and surface problems at the prototyping stage - before mistakes and overlooked details impact budgets, launch dates, or customer trust.
• Own the polish layer for executive, board, customer, and trade event demos across the portfolio. Make our products demonstrate as well as they perform - in the AI lab, on the trade floor, and in the board room.
• Establish and grow a shared component library in React and TypeScript. Set the visual, interaction, and accessibility standard for the portfolio.
• Partner directly with product owners, designers, and engineering leads across multiple product teams. Translate ambiguous product questions into working artifacts that sharpen them.
• Maintain Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA conformance in everything that graduates from prototype into shared infrastructure.
• Use modern AI tools (Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Figma Make, and successors) as a daily part of your practice - both to accelerate your own work and to model what AI-augmented design and frontend engineering looks like for the rest of the team.
• Navigate a matrixed environment where product teams own delivery and you own the cross-cutting craft layer.

Required:

• 5 years working at the intersection of design and frontend engineering. You design in Figma, you ship in React and TypeScript.
• Strong visual design sense. Your work holds up in front of customers, executives, and investors without a designer cleaning it up.
• Track record of horizontal or cross-team work. You have operated across multiple product teams or business units, not just inside one.
• React and TypeScript fluency sufficient to stand up polished prototypes in days. You use modern AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, or equivalent) as part of your workflow and can demonstrate how they've changed the speed and quality of your output.
• CSS depth: layout, motion, typography, design tokens.
• Accessibility competence in code: ARIA, keyboard interaction, focus management.
• Portfolio that demonstrates both interaction design and shipped code. We will look at both.
• Comfort with ambiguity and competing stakeholder demands. Some weeks are prototype work, some are demo polish for a customer meeting or board presentation, some are component library - often all three in the same week.

Desired:

• Prior work on a shipped component library or design system.
• Federal or DoD software experience. Familiarity with Section 508 conformance.
• Background in operator-facing tooling: SOC consoles, network management, command-and-control, or other dense data environments.
• Experience producing investor, board, customer, or trade event demos.
• Experience in PE-backed, growth-stage, or matrixed organizations where horizontal roles must earn influence rather than command it.

Clearance:

• Active or eligible for a security clearance.