Design Engineer

Design Engineer

Loci · New York City · On-site · Full-time

$160,000 annual base salary · 0.5–1% equity

Understand our users, own the design of Loci’s apps and website, and write the production code that brings the experience to life.

Loci brings private AI to the phones and computers people already own. We believe people deserve to own their AI models, not rent them. Conversations run on the user’s device, and downloaded models can work offline. As our Design Engineer, you’ll own the path from understanding what people need to designing and shipping the experience. You’ll lead user research, shape the UX and visual design of our apps and website, and contribute hands-on engineering across Loci. Working directly with the founders and engineers, you’ll turn complex capabilities into simple, polished products and keep improving them after they ship.

What you’ll work on

• Lead user research: plan and conduct interviews and usability tests, understand where people struggle, and turn what you learn into clear product priorities.

• Own the UX, interaction design, and visual direction of Loci’s apps and website, from discovery and onboarding to everyday conversations, model selection, and settings.

• Move from sketches and Figma prototypes to working software. Design complete flows, including loading, empty, error, and recovery states.

• Write, review, test, and ship production code for the website and app. Build interfaces and interactions, connect them to product behavior, and tackle the engineering work needed to make the experience reliable.

• Build and maintain a cohesive design system in Figma and code, with reusable components, responsive layouts, accessible controls, and thoughtful motion across mobile and desktop.

• Work with founders and engineers to choose what to build, make practical tradeoffs, and carry projects from research through release. Contribute to broader product engineering as Loci’s needs evolve.

• Test the shipped experience on real devices, gather feedback, and use research and product evidence to improve usability, quality, and performance.

What you bring

• A portfolio of digital products you have both designed and helped build, showing strong visual craft, thoughtful UX, and your own contribution to the shipped result.

• Hands-on user research experience. You can ask useful questions, run usability tests, synthesize findings, and explain how evidence changed a design decision.

• The ability to independently build and ship production interfaces, debug behavior, work with APIs and application state, and write maintainable, tested code.

• Fluency in Figma and strong fundamentals in layout, typography, interaction, motion, responsive design, and accessibility.

• Comfort working in an existing codebase and learning new tools. Our shared app is built in Rust with Dioxus, and our website uses Astro and JavaScript. You should be willing to work in both.

• Clear communication and sound product judgment. You can explain tradeoffs, challenge a confusing flow, prioritize the work that matters, and take ownership in a small team.

Experience that helps

• Experience with Rust, Dioxus, Astro, or other component-based web and app frameworks.

• Building consumer products across mobile and desktop, especially AI products or experiences that make unfamiliar technology approachable.

• Work on design systems, frontend performance, native platform interactions, or a cohesive visual identity across product and marketing.

Include your portfolio and one or two projects you designed and built, with a live product, code sample, or technical walkthrough where possible. Tell us what you learned from users, what you personally designed and implemented, and what changed after launch. Include any portfolio password.