Lead Design Engineer

Company Description

Zensite is a design-focused company founded in 2016, specializing in UI/UX, website, mobile app, product, and Web3 design. The team combines product strategy and a structured Six Pillar Product Design framework to align solutions with real customer needs and strong product-market fit. Zensite emphasizes research, iterative feedback, and data-driven experimentation to achieve positive business metrics for clients across B2B and B2C markets. The company leverages a global network of experienced experts and delivers scalable design systems that support rapid implementation and prototyping. Flexible financing options enable clients to move quickly from concept to execution.

Role Description

We are hiring a Design Lead to own delivery end to end so our founders can focus on growth. This is the most senior non-founder role at Zensite, and it is hands-on. You will lead client relationships, run the design and development team, and stay close to the craft and the code yourself.

This is a rare combination role. You are a senior designer with real craft, a delivery lead who can run clients and a team, and an AI design engineer fluent in both the AI-native design workflow and the frontend that ships it. If you are only one or two of those three, this is not your role.

What you will own:

• Delivery and clients. Own scope, timeline, quality, and the relationship for every client project. Be the primary point of contact: lead calls, manage expectations, present work, handle feedback.
• The team. Lead and unblock a remote design and development team across three timezones. Assign work, review quality, and build the operating rhythm that lets us ship without the founders in the loop.
• Design craft. Set creative direction and own the visual and interaction quality of flagship deliverables. Take on the hardest design problems yourself: information architecture, complex flows, design systems.
• AI design engineering. Drive our AI-first workflow (Claude, Cursor, Paper.design, Figma AI). Bridge design and build by taking designs into production-grade frontend (Webflow, Framer, React/Tailwind) when a project needs it. Keep pushing our tooling so the team delivers measurably faster without losing quality.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in product or UI/UX design, with at least 2 years leading delivery or a team.
• Proven design engineering. You have shipped frontend yourself in Webflow, Framer, or React/Tailwind, not handed it off.
• AI-native. You already run an AI-first design workflow and can show how it changed your output.
• Strong client-facing communication in English. You can run a room and hold a difficult conversation.
• Comfortable being the most senior person in the delivery loop, with no founder safety net.

Nice to have

• Agency background and multi-client delivery experience.
• Experience standing up team operating processes from scratch.