engineering
Posted Oct 9, 2025Founding Design Engineer
at Datacurve
San Francisco, United StatesHybrid
Responsibilities
- WHAT YOU’LL DO - Build design systems: Create custom design systems and reusable UI components that support many data formats and workflows.
- - Own the Quest Builder: Engineer multi-step agent workflows and UI generation that make setup fast, consistent, and scalable.
Requirements
- Experience with VS Code extensions, IDE plugins, or browser extensions. - Familiarity with marketplace/community dynamics. - Exposure to gamification design or engagement psychology.
Benefits
- YOU’LL SUCCEED HERE IF YOU HAVE - Proven track record building 0→1 products and design systems from scratch. - Background in developer tools, gamification platforms, or complex marketplaces. - Ability to think like both a designer and an engineer—balancing aesthetics, interaction, and performance. - A founding mentality: scrappy, equity-motivated, excited to work hard to build something lasting.
Additional details
- Shipd is our gamified data collection platform that transforms boring annotation into an addictive, competitive experience.
- With quests, bounties, and leaderboards, Shipd attracts the best contributors for complex data tasks -- and now we need a Founding Design Engineer to take our current platform and turn it into a polished, scalable system.
- - Tackle complex UX challenges: Design for 6+ hour coding sessions, competitive programming culture, and real-time telemetry.
- - Ship gamification features: Build leaderboards, streaks, bounties, and community mechanics that drive engagement.
- - Ship without handoffs: Combine design + engineering to move fast, iterate, and polish.
- CHARACTERISTICS WE’RE LOOKING FOR - Hybrid thinker: part game designer, part engineer. - Obsession with functional complexity, not just pretty UI. - Curiosity about developer psychology and how to motivate at scale. - Thrives in ambiguity; ships fast without waiting for process. NICE TO HAVE -