Design Engineer (San Francisco/Seoul)

Shape the experience, bring it to life with AI, and help the whole team build better products.About Playad GIGR is building Playad, an AI agent team for marketing. We are building a system that turns goals and customer context into action, learns from results, and continuously improves what happens next. Design makes this system understandable. It helps people see what AI is doing, understand its decisions, and know when to step in. It turns complex marketing work into experiences people can navigate with confidence.

About the Role We're looking for a Design Engineer who takes ownership of the user experience—from understanding the problem to shaping what ships. You will use Figma and AI tools to explore ideas, create working prototypes, and develop components and interfaces alongside Product Engineers. You will shape important product experiences and build the shared design foundations that help others create thoughtful, consistent screens. We want working components in the product to become the source of truth for our agreed designs. Figma remains a space for exploration and collaboration. You will help connect these environments so that design decisions carry through to what customers actually use. You will bring design judgment, curiosity, and a willingness to build. Product Engineers will partner with you on technical implementation and production readiness. You will help define how people work with an AI agent team—and how our team uses AI to design and build products. Working close to customers, engineers, and the founding team, your influence will extend from individual interactions to the foundations other people build on.

What You'll Do

• Talk directly with customers and observe how they use Playad to understand where they get confused, hesitate, or get stuck.
• Turn complex marketing workflows and AI behavior into clear information architecture, user flows, and interactions.
• Use Figma and AI tools to explore alternatives and create working prototypes that help the team make decisions.
• Develop reusable components, design patterns, and examples with Product Engineers so teammates can build on a shared foundation.
• Work with Product Engineers early to shape new experiences, then review and refine them together in the actual product.
• Consider the full experience, including loading, empty states, errors, recovery, responsive behavior, and accessibility.
• Use customer feedback and product data to understand whether what shipped solved the problem—and keep improving it.

One week, you might prototype a new way for customers to review an AI agent's plan. The next, you might simplify an existing workflow or turn a recurring interaction into a pattern the whole team can use. Within your first few months, you will develop a clear understanding of our customers and their most important usability problems, lead the design of an important user journey through to release, and establish reusable components and patterns that help Product Engineers build consistent interfaces.

Who We're Looking For

• Someone who can turn an ambiguous customer problem into a clear, thoughtful product experience.
• Strong visual and interaction design skills, with attention to typography, hierarchy, layout, language, and behavior.
• The ability to explain design decisions, discuss tradeoffs, and change direction when evidence challenges an assumption.
• Comfort using Figma and a willingness to explore AI tools to bring ideas to life.
• The judgment to evaluate AI-generated work, recognize what feels wrong, and guide it toward a better result.
• An instinct for recognizing when a solution should become a reusable component or pattern—and when it should stay specific to one problem.
• Ownership of design quality through implementation, release, and learning from real use.
• A willingness to share your judgment and knowledge so others can produce better work.

You may come from product design, interaction design, or a path that crosses design and technology. We care about the quality of your work, the thinking behind it, and your willingness to learn new ways of making things.

Signals We Love You may have:

• Designed an experience that reached real users and improved it based on what you learned.
• Created a design system or component library that other people actively use.
• Made an AI product, complex workflow, or data-heavy interface easier to understand.
• Used AI to turn an idea into a working prototype, even without a development background.
• Improved how designers and engineers work together, helping the team move faster while raising the quality of what ships.

How We Hire We start with a casual coffee chat. If we both want to learn more, we will invite you to a paid Trial of at least 40 hours (or a task equivalent). Instead of relying entirely on interviews, we prefer to spend real time solving real problems together. The Trial is also your opportunity to understand how we work and decide whether this is the right place for you.

Important Note

• We will NOT accept applications missing a cover letter explaining why you're interested in the role, how you can contribute, and why GIGR.
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. This posting may close at any time once suitable candidates have been found, so we advise applying as soon as possible.
• We've got a team that genuinely loves blurring time zones — if working across US and KR hours sounds energizing rather than exhausting, you'll fit right in.

Life at GIGR At GIGR, we are committed to ensuring that as the company scales, your professional influence and mastery evolve at the same rate. We provide the resources and environment necessary for high-density growth and sustainable performance:

• Foundational Impact: Every Giver has a seat at the table. You will directly influence company strategy, product architecture, and our internal culture, seeing your decisions impact global brands and the future of AI marketing.
• Global Hubs: We operate out of San Francisco and Seoul. We value the creative friction of in-person collaboration and encourage onsite work to foster high-bandwidth innovation.
• Comprehensive Health & Well-being: Full healthcare coverage and support systems designed to ensure you can sustain high performance over the long term.
• Trust-Based Vacation: We focus on outcomes, not hours. We maintain a flexible, trust-based vacation policy to ensure you stay energized and inspired.
• Relocation Support: Assistance for exceptional candidates moving to join our teams in either Seoul or San Francisco.