Founding Design Engineer

Helium is building Self-Improving Software: AI that automatically generates & tests new software experiences to lift revenue. We’re…

• Talent-dense (8 people, 6 engineers, 75% ex-founders)
• Well-funded ($6M from Google & Leaders from OpenAI)
• Fast-growing (Serving tens of millions of AI experiences per day for top consumer companies).

AI has created a once-in-history opportunity, and we’re here to win, because of that…

• 🔴 We work in-person in our SF office 6 days per week (Mon-Sat). 🔴

What You’ll Do

Own design across Helium’s entire AI Experience generation product, including…

• Design and implement end-to-end user flows including…
  • Using Helium’s AI editor to generate new in-app experiences
  • Running experiments and automatically analyzing results
  • Receiving and critiquing auto-generated experiences
• Help engineers think through UX challenges and critique / uplevel design generally
• Build out a visual identity and a design system
• Work directly with the founders to help build out our team.
• Talk to customers every week about how to simplify and improve our product
• Wearing a lot more hats than listed above 👷.

What We’re Looking For

You should be a designer-who-codes (or an engineer with taste)

• 1-4+ years as a product designer, frontend engineer, or similar role combining design and implementation
• Deep expertise in modern frontend technologies (React, TypeScript, modern CSS)
• Excellent design taste and a keen eye for detail
• Track record of making complex user flows intuitive (Making “The simple simple and the complex possible”)

Nice To Haves

• Experience designing interfaces for AI products or ML-powered features
• Experience optimizing frontend performance and reducing latency
• Experience with brand, visual design, or creating design systems.
• Founder experience

Reasons This Role Might Not Be A Fit

• You’d like to spend weeks perfecting every experience
• You avoid Cursor or AI coding tools.
• You don’t want to talk to customers or figure out the end-to-end plan for features.

Requirements

🔴 Note 🔴

• This is a full-time, in-person role based in San Francisco - we work from the office 6 days a week (Mon-Sat)
• You must be based in the Bay Area or willing to relocate before starting.
• We require US work authorization, but are open to O-1 visa sponsorship for truly exceptional candidates.

Our stack:

• Next.js (React/Typescript), Zustand
• AI (vercel) SDK
• Tailwind/Shadcn
• Supabase
• Clickhouse
• Golang/Fly.io
• Mobile: Swift, Flutter, Expo, Android