Design Engineer

About the role

Retell AI is using first-principles thinking to reimagine the call center with cutting-edge voice AI, and this role sits at the heart of that transformation. As the Design Engineer, you will own the critical bridge between design intent and production code, ensuring that the vision for our AI voice platform is realized with precision and consistency. You will build and maintain our foundational design system, from component libraries to design tokens, enabling thousands of companies to run AI voice agents at scale. You will prototype new UI in React and TypeScript, validate concepts with real users, and then systematize those wins into robust, reusable patterns. AI tools are not an experiment for you; they are core to how you research, build, and iterate. You will collaborate daily with product designers and engineers to raise the bar on every product surface, ensuring that what ships looks exactly like what was designed. This is a role for someone who cares as much about craft as output and wants to have a direct impact on one of the fastest-growing voice AI companies in the world.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Work AI-first by using Cursor and Claude Code as your starting point for component work, applying your own judgment to refine quality and correctness.
• Build and own the Retell design system, including the component library, Storybook, design tokens, and Figma variables that serve as the source of truth.
• Prototype in React and TypeScript and test with real users before committing to full systemization, validating assumptions quickly and safely.
• Translate Figma designs into production-grade components with pixel-level accuracy, ensuring consistency across every interaction.
• Own design-code parity across Retell's core product surfaces, including the dashboard, agent configuration, and CRM views used by enterprise customers.
• Review frontend pull requests for visual quality and design fidelity, not just functionality, catching regressions before they reach users.
• Document and share AI-native prompts and workflows with the design and engineering team to create reusable patterns and best practices.
• Partner with the product designer to evolve the visual language as the product scales, balancing consistency with necessary experimentation.
• Advocate for design tokens and component discipline so that new features can be built quickly without sacrificing quality.
• Contribute to architectural decisions that affect the long-term maintainability and performance of the design system.
• Collaborate with engineers across the codebase to ensure that components are accessible, performant, and aligned with product goals.
• Identify opportunities to standardize patterns that currently rely on ad hoc implementations, reducing long-term maintenance burden.
• Support testing strategies that involve both automated checks and human review to validate usability and brand consistency.
• Communicate tradeoffs clearly to stakeholders, helping them understand the impact of design changes on the codebase and vice versa.

Requirements

• You have built or significantly contributed to a design system at a real product company, not just in theory or academic exercises.
• You are fluent in Figma, including component libraries, variables, and auto layout, and you maintain systems at scale.
• You write clean React and TypeScript and care deeply about component API design, reusability, and long-term maintenance.
• You actively use Cursor, Claude Code, or similar tools and have clear, evidence-based opinions on where they help and where they do not.
• You prototype in code rather than waiting for pixel-perfect specs, using early iterations to validate ideas with users and stakeholders.
• You notice when spacing is off by a single pixel and can't leave visual inconsistencies unresolved.
• Designers and engineers both love working with you because you translate between disciplines with empathy and clarity.
• You thrive in fast-moving products where specs evolve mid-build and you adapt without losing attention to detail.
• You have shipped real components to production products used by paying customers, demonstrating reliability and ownership.

Nice to have

• Experience with Storybook for building and documenting component systems in a production environment.
• A sensibility for motion and interaction design, understanding how micro-interactions support the user experience.
• Familiarity with accessibility standards and a track record of building components that meet basic accessibility expectations.
• A background at a design-forward SaaS company where design quality is a core differentiator.
• An interest in mentoring others on AI-native workflows and helping the team level up its tooling and practices.

Practical notes

This role is full_time and based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

How we evaluate

We care less about where you went to school and more about your ability to execute with clarity, ship high-quality components, and partner effectively across design and engineering.