Founding Design Engineer

Location: Fully remote (minimum 2 hours overlap with UK working hours, between 12pm and 5pm UK time) Type: Contractor Compensation: Competitive rate + equity, structure flexible and open to discussion 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗨𝘀 Manifest is a VC-backed startup changing how people consume and interact with the news and social media. We aggregate stories from leading publishers and pair them with live prediction markets and other real-time sources, so readers can follow the story and engage with what happens next. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗲 As our Design Engineer, you'll own the user experience across Manifest's web and mobile product: how people find their way in, how the product feels to use, and what keeps them coming back. You'll work directly with the founders to turn user needs into clear, intuitive interfaces, and take them from early idea to production. This is a deeply hands-on, zero-to-one role for someone who enjoys both making product decisions and writing the code that brings them to life. You won't just implement mockups. You'll identify the right problems, shape solutions, ship them, and evaluate whether they worked. 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 - Python FastAPI (Gunicorn/Uvicorn), Pydantic, and Jinja - Figma, Svelte, modern CSS (e.g. Tailwind) - PostgreSQL; Azure, GCP - Kafka or comparable streaming infrastructure + WebSockets, webhooks, and SSE 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 - Shape the core consumer experience: personalised feeds, market discovery, market pages, search, onboarding, profiles, and social interactions - Turn live market, news, and community data into clear, responsive, and compelling interfaces - Refine the product's interaction patterns, user journey, and lightweight design system across desktop and mobile - Contribute to the data and infrastructure foundations needed to keep the experience fast, trustworthy, and reliable - Over time, help build recommendations, community features, notifications, AI-assisted research, and products for professional customers 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂'𝗹𝗹 𝗢𝘄𝗻 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 - Own the frontend across key user journeys, from first visit and onboarding to core product interactions and repeat usage - Build and maintain production-quality interfaces, not just prototypes - Collaborate on API requirements, data handling, and reliable user-facing behaviour - Maintain quality through testing, accessibility, performance, and maintainable code 𝗨𝗫 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 - Decide how flows should work, not just how screens should look - Design responsive, polished interfaces, including thoughtful loading, empty, error, and success states - Identify confusing flows and usability problems, and turn them into practical improvements 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 - Maintain a consistent, polished experience across the site and product - Build and evolve a lightweight design system with reusable components, consistent styles, and clear interaction patterns 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 - Implement and maintain product analytics, including meaningful events and journey tracking (e.g. PostHog, Hotjar) - Use funnels, session recordings, user feedback, and conversations to understand friction and prioritise changes 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲'𝗿𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗙𝗼𝗿 - Experience shipping and maintaining real consumer web and mobile products - Strong experience with the frontend and middleware technologies in our stack - Good visual and interaction design judgment: layout, typography, hierarchy, navigation, and interface behaviour - Ability to move from an ambiguous problem to a working solution without fully specified mockups - Experience with responsive interfaces, API integration, frontend state, and testing - Comfort using product analytics and qualitative feedback to make decisions - Clear communication, good prioritisation, and a pragmatic approach to balancing quality and speed - A portfolio or examples of shipped work that explain your contribution and decisions, not just screenshots 𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 - Experience with PostHog, Hotjar, or comparable analytics and session-replay tools - Experience building or evolving a design system - Experience with data-rich interfaces, charts, search, feeds, or financial/information products - Experience running lightweight usability tests or customer interviews - Early-stage startup experience, or having independently built a product - Interest in forecasting, prediction markets, and helping people make sense of information