Fractional Founding Designer

About the Role

This is a fractional founding design role (10-20 hours per week) at an early-stage AI recruiting platform in the DACH region. You will be the first designer, owning the look, feel, and standards of the product from the ground up, not just executing tickets but shaping how the whole product is built and experienced.

What You'll Do

• Define and establish the visual and interaction design direction for the product.
• Build and maintain a design system and documentation that the engineering team can build against.
• Create high-fidelity mockups and prototypes to communicate design decisions clearly.
• Collaborate directly with engineers and product stakeholders to implement designs and navigate technical constraints.
• Make product strategy and design decisions with limited information, iterating based on user feedback.
• Conduct or coordinate user research, usability testing, and qualitative feedback gathering to inform your work.
• Own design-to-code handoff and work comfortably with frontend implementation contexts.

What We're Looking For

• 3+ years of product design experience shipping consumer or B2B products end-to-end.
• Demonstrated experience establishing design systems, standards, and documentation for teams.
• Strong portfolio showing shipped products with a clear problem-solving or before/after narrative.
• Proficiency in modern design tools such as Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD.
• Experience working cross-functionally with engineering and product to solve real implementation challenges.
• Comfort making decisions under ambiguity and iterating quickly based on feedback.
• Background in early-stage startups or fractional/part-time design engagements is a plus.
• Familiarity with HTML/CSS and design-to-code handoff workflows is a plus.

Location

Fully remote, based in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, or Switzerland).