Design Engineer
ABOUT THE ROLE
We're looking for a design engineer to help build and maintain Waypoint, our design system, across both the Figma library and the production codebase. This is not a "designer who codes a little" or an "engineer who dabbles in Figma" role. You should be genuinely fluent on both sides, comfortable defining a component's behavior and states in Figma one hour and shipping the same component to npm the next.
You'll take direct ownership of the Figma side of our library (structure, variants, tokens, documentation) while also contributing to the core Waypoint system: our component packages, our token pipeline, and the tooling that keeps design and code in sync. If the idea of being the single point of continuity between a Figma frame and a production component sounds exciting rather than exhausting, this is your role.
We're also thinking beyond the system we have today. Waypoint isn't just meant to serve designers and engineers, it's meant to become something a model can read, reason about, and build with directly. We want someone who can help us get there: grounded enough to do the unglamorous work of making today's system solid, and forward looking enough to help define what an intelligent design system looks like next.
WHY THIS ROLE
Waypoint is still early enough that the decisions you make now will shape how the system scales. You'll have real ownership, not just a queue of component tickets, and you'll be working alongside a team that treats design and engineering as one discipline rather than two departments that hand work back and forth. And you'll be helping define what a design system becomes when it has to serve a third audience: the models that will increasingly build with it.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Own and evolve the Figma library for Waypoint: component structure, variants, properties, and documentation, so it stays a reliable source of truth for design teams.
- Build and maintain core Waypoint components, contributing directly to our component packages alongside the design engineering team.
- Work across our token pipeline, keeping design tokens in Figma and their code representations (CSS custom properties, Tailwind config) tightly synced.
- Partner with product designers to translate new patterns into system components, and with product engineers to make sure those components are easy to adopt correctly.
- Help define and refine the workflows and tooling that connect Figma and code (sync scripts, plugins, documentation sites) rather than relying on manual handoff.
- Write clear documentation and usage guidance so the system scales without you being the bottleneck.
- Weigh in on system architecture decisions: when to add a new component versus extend an existing one, how to version and package changes, how to keep the system consistent as it grows.
- Help shape how Waypoint evolves to serve a third consumer beyond designers and engineers: the model itself. That means thinking about how components, tokens, and patterns get structured so they're legible to AI systems, not just to humans.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Own and evolve the Figma library for Waypoint: component structure, variants, properties, and documentation, so it stays a reliable source of truth for design teams.
- Build and maintain core Waypoint components, contributing directly to our component packages alongside the design engineering team.
- Work across our token pipeline, keeping design tokens in Figma and their code representations (CSS custom properties, Tailwind config) tightly synced.
- Partner with product designers to translate new patterns into system components, and with product engineers to make sure those components are easy to adopt correctly.
- Help define and refine the workflows and tooling that connect Figma and code (sync scripts, plugins, documentation sites) rather than relying on manual handoff.
- Write clear documentation and usage guidance so the system scales without you being the bottleneck.
- Weigh in on system architecture decisions: when to add a new component versus extend an existing one, how to version and package changes, how to keep the system consistent as it grows.
- Help shape how Waypoint evolves to serve a third consumer beyond designers and engineers: the model itself. That means thinking about how components, tokens, and patterns get structured so they're legible to AI systems, not just to humans.
NICE-TO-HAVES
- Experience building or contributing to design-to-code sync tooling (Figma plugins, token pipelines, MCP-based workflows, or similar).
- Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG) and how to bake them into components rather than bolt them on.
- Experience packaging and versioning component libraries for multiple consuming teams (npm scoped packages, semver, changelogs).
- Exposure to multi-platform design systems work (iOS/SwiftUI, Android/Jetpack Compose, or token build tools like Style Dictionary).
- Experience in an AI native product environment or genuine interest in how AI changes the way design systems get built and used.