Product Designer for AI Research Tooling

# Product Designer who builds with AI coding agents We're a small, well-funded startup building AI research tooling for the academic ML community. We have a working product and a fresh brand identity. We need someone with a sharp eye for product detail who builds the UI/UX polish, ideally by driving an AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, etc) to ship it. ## What the role is The person who makes a product feel intentional by sweating the small interactions, and who builds them in code rather than handing off a spec. Think: a well-considered onboarding card, the hover and selection details that make people go "someone clearly spent time on this." ## The problem Our product is powerful, but the UI currently reads like a bland clone. We want it to feel crafted and a little delightful, the kind of detail that makes people remember it and prefer it. We have a brand system: custom palette, type hierarchy, a distinctive "swarm of dots / cubes" visual language, but we need to apply it to more parts of our product surface. ## What you'd work on - **Sign-in / sign-up page.** Currently generic. We want it on-brand and intentional. - **Conversation and "thinking block" components.** Redesigning the message and reasoning block types: timings, transitions, hierarchy, micro-interactions. - **Loading and thinking states.** Our tool isn't instant, so waiting should be enjoyable. Subtle, branded, alive. Tasteful, not noisy. - **Micro-interaction polish.** Layout jumps, padding, icon states, easing, plus the considered details that signal craft. ## What we're looking for - A strong eye for product interaction detail and restraint. Your work should feel considered. - You build in code, comfortable driving an AI coding agent (Claude Code / Codex / Cursor) to ship production-ready UI yourself. - A portfolio of shipped product UI where the polish is evident: onboarding, empty states, selection and hover details, well-crafted small components. - Comfort working iteratively with a founder and a front-end dev. We handle brand migration and the marketing site internally, so you'd focus on product UI/UX polish. - Fluent English. Heavy motion-design tooling (GSAP, Lottie, After Effects) is a nice-to-have. We care more about taste and your ability to ship the detail yourself. ## How we'd work We'd start with one concrete deliverable (e.g. redesigning the thinking blocks and loading states), then expand if it's a good fit. ## To apply Share: 1. One or more examples of product details you've personally sweated. Components, flows, or interactions you're proud of, ideally shipped. 2. A sentence or two on how you work with AI coding agents to build UI. 3. Your rate and rough availability. Skip the long cover letter. We care about the work.