Founding Design Engineer
Founding Design Engineer at Finta — San Francisco, CA, US
- Company: Finta
- Location: San Francisco, CA, US
- Employment type: FULL_TIME
- Salary: USD 100000–180000 / year
- Posted: 2026-07-17
About this role
About Finta
Have you tried renewing a driver’s license online? The site looks stuck in 2000, it is confusing and slow. That is how most accounting and tax software still feels. The space is crowded with sales teams who rely on fear to close deals, and the result is bad experiences justified by “compliance.”
Finta is changing that. We automate bookkeeping, file taxes quickly and compliantly, and give companies real-time financial metrics. Our goal is simple: to remove the manual, tedious parts of finance so that smart people can focus on hard problems.
We raised $2M from Y Combinator, Mercury’s CEO, leaders at Mercury, Brex, and Ramp. Since launching in 2023, we have grown organically through word of mouth and now serve hundreds of paying customers. See what they say at www.finta.com.
Role
We’re looking for a Founding Design Engineer to raise the bar on how Finta looks and feels. You’ll sit at the intersection of design and engineering, someone who obsesses over animation curves, spacing, and interaction details, and also ships production code.
You won’t be designing in Figma and handing off specs. You’ll be designing in the browser, building the components and systems that make Finta feel like the best software our customers have ever used.
This is a founding role. You’ll be one of the first people shaping how Finta feels, and you’ll have an outsized impact on the product, the brand, and the culture of craft at the company. Over time, you’ll have the opportunity to build and lead the design engineering function as we grow.
What you’ll do
Build and evolve Finta’s design system: the components, tokens, patterns, and motion language that everything is built on
Ship polished, production-ready UI across product, marketing, and our website
Create reusable building blocks like data tables, filters, navigation, loading states, animations, and interactive patterns
Bring modern interaction design to a Rails codebase with fluid transitions, micro-interactions, and the kind of craft you see in tools like Linear, Cursor, and Vercel
Explore what’s possible at the edge of UI in the age of AI: streaming interfaces, agent status patterns, real-time feedback, and new interaction paradigms
Work directly with the CEO and engineering team to shape what we build and how it feels
Set the quality bar for every pixel that ships
Influence product direction, not just execution. You’ll have a voice in what we build, not just how it looks.
You’ll be a good fit if you
Have deep expertise in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You think in the browser, not in abstractions.
Have production experience with server-rendered stacks: Rails, Hotwire, Turbo, Stimulus, Tailwind, ViewComponent, or similar
Obsess over details like animation timing, easing curves, hover states, spacing, and color. The things most people don’t notice but everyone feels.
Use AI tools daily to move faster (Cursor, Claude, Conductor, or similar) and can show real examples of shipping with them
Have a strong visual eye and design sensibility, even if your title has always been “engineer”
Can point to work you’ve shipped that made people say “damn, this feels good”
Ship fast and iterate. You’d rather put something real in front of users than polish a mockup.
Are excited about being early. You want to define the standard, not follow one.
Why join
Design is at the heart of everything we do. This isn’t a company where engineering overrules design.
You’ll define the design system and quality bar from the ground up
Ship consequential work used by hundreds of startups
Join a small, mission-driven team that values craft and user experience
10+ years of runway backed by top investors
Real ownership and influence over product direction, architecture, and early hiring decisions
Why you should not join Finta
You prefer designing in Figma and handing off to engineers
You think animations and micro-interactions are unnecessary polish
You think trying new tools like Paper is a waste of your time
You prefer non-AI tools and stay away from MCPs
You prefer heavy structure and narrow scope
You’re not excited about AI or what it means for product interfaces
You need step-by-step direction
You’re looking for a remote job to coast
Tools and stack
Ruby on Rails with server-rendered views
Hotwire (Turbo + Stimulus) for interactivity
Tailwind CSS and ViewComponent for the design system
GitHub, Linear, Figma, Paper, Slack
AI tools: Cursor, Claude, Conductor, and whatever you want to use
Our values
Simplicity: Be concise, clear, and efficient
Endurance: Act with integrity and think long term
Decisive: Bias for action and learn quickly
Passion: Bring dedication and energy to the work
Open minded: Hold strong opinions and question them rigorously
Selfless: Set egos aside and win as a team
Compensation
$120-$180k plus 1-3% equity
Visa sponsorship and relocation support available.
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
Meals, gym membership, professional education benefits
Monthly team events and annual company offsite
⚠︎ IMPORTANT
In addition to applying, please email andy at finta dot com with your proudest designs.