Design Engineer

The role

We're looking for a brand designer who lives at the intersection of design and code. You'll craft the brand and experience that makes Specific Intelligence legible and intuitive to our audience of engineers, researchers, and heads of AI/ML at some of the largest companies in the world.

This includes the interfaces where customers first learn about Applied Compute (our website, blog posts, case studies) as well as materials and platforms that shows up publicly across our GTM efforts. You'll work directly with the founding team to prototype, build, and polish the surfaces that sit on top of our research and infrastructure. This is a role for someone who thinks like a designer but builds like an engineer to help define and operationalize the visual language and messaging for the company.

What you'll do

• Define the visual language, voice, and design philosophy for Applied Compute: from the website to the decks.

• Turn our research into interactive experiences.

• Find the visual vocabulary for abstract infrastucture across models, weights, traces, inference, and continual learning.

• Establish the systems (components, templates, primitives) that let a small team ship consistently across sales collateral, GTM assets, and launches.

• Push our engineering and research teams on craft, and partner with them closely on storytelling.

What we're looking for

• Strong brand and visual design chops, with a portfolio of public-facing work.

• Technical fluency. We publish frontier work on post-training, RL, and async training, and would be excited to work with someone who finds this research exciting.

• An engineer's instincts about our audience.

• Hands on keyboard. We'd be eager to work with someone who has strong opinions and wants to execute them personally.

• High agency and comfort with ambiguity in a fast-moving market.

Strong candidates also have

• Experience building brand for developer tools, infrastructure, or other abstract technical products.

• Data visualization or technical illustration experience.

• Brand experience at a larger company or agency, paired with the appetite to work at startup speed.

• A history of owning something zero to one.

The U.S. base salary range for this full-time position is $190,000–$310,000. Total compensation for this role also includes meaningful equity in a fast-growing startup, along with a comprehensive benefits package designed to support you both personally and professionally. Base salary is determined by a range of factors including individual qualifications, experience, skills, interview performance, market data, and work location. The listed salary range is intended as a guideline and may be adjusted.

Benefits & Logistics

This role is based in San Francisco. We work from our office in the Mission. We offer:

• Competitive compensation and equity

• 100% employer-paid health insurance coverage for you and your family

• Unlimited PTO

• Paid parental leave

• Daily lunches and dinners

• Transportation and relocation support

• 5% 401(k) match

We sponsor visas. While we can't guarantee success for every candidate or role, if you're the right fit, we're committed to working through the process with you. We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. As set forth in Applied Compute’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.