Frontend Engineer (Design Systems)

About Maincode

Maincode is an applied AI lab. We turn research into practical tools: interfaces that support decision-making, surface insights, and communicate complex ideas with clarity. We believe AI’s next step forward isn’t scale, it’s design. Our work connects research and interface, helping people understand, navigate, and collaborate with intelligent systems.

You’ll join the Design Engineering Group (DEG), a small, embedded team that works across brand, product, and early prototypes. We care about craft, clarity, and steady momentum.

The Role

We’re hiring a Frontend Engineer focused on design systems to help build demo-ready interfaces, support early AI prototypes, and evolve our internal UI libraries and tools. The role blends engineering with design sensibilities.

You’ll partner with our Design Engineering Lead and collaborate closely with research and product teams. Some days you’ll refine a branded microsite, other days you’ll prototype a new interaction for an Ollama-powered tool. The work requires balancing polish with pragmatism: knowing when to increase fidelity and when to keep things simple.

What You’ll Work On

Core Work

• Build and maintain high-quality layouts and components across Maincode and partner surfaces

• Extend our design system with new UI primitives, motions, and reusable patterns

• Implement polished, demo-ready interfaces including states, flows, and interaction details

• Manage staging, QA, and feedback cycles for production-adjacent projects

Exploratory Work

• Prototype interfaces for emerging AI interaction models, such as Ollama or Docker-based tools

• Use AI-assisted coding environments (Cursor, Claude Code, V0) to accelerate prototyping

• Balance speed and quality, testing ideas quickly while keeping code clean and maintainable

• Translate experimental prototypes into practical microsite features or internal tools

What We’re Looking For

• 1–3 years experience (or equivalent internships or projects) in design engineering or hybrid frontend roles

• Strong visual instincts supported by systems thinking

• Evidence of delivering polished, demo-quality UI/UX with attention to states, flow, typography, and usability

• Comfort with Figma and modern frontend frameworks like React, Tailwind, and shadcn/ui

• Familiarity with containerised environments (Docker) and API integrations

• Interest in interaction design for AI systems and willingness to work with inference backends like Ollama

• Clear communicator able to explain decisions, document trade-offs, and iterate with others

Tools & Practices

You’ll work across:

• AI-assisted coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, V0)

• Figma for design and system exploration

• Frontend libraries like shadcn/ui and Tailwind

• Motion.dev /equiv. for animation and system motion

• GitHub, Docker, Notion, and lightweight documentation for collaboration

What Growth Looks Like

Within 6–12 months, you will:

• Expand our design system with new components and patterns

• Deliver demo-ready AI prototypes with the research team

• Contribute to design direction through interface craft and engineering choices

• Build increasing independence in balancing speed, polish, and technical decisions

What to Include

We’re interested in your thinking, not only your outcomes:

• 1–3 projects that illustrate your design-engineering process, including exploration and execution

• A short Loom (optional, up to 5 minutes) walking through a project

• Any examples of demo-quality UI/UX you’ve shipped

Why This Role Matters

Interface is how Maincode’s ideas are experienced. Your work ensures our research is expressed with clarity and precision, whether through a microsite, a system component, or an AI-powered prototype.

Hiring Process

We move intentionally and communicate clearly at every step:

• Portfolio Review – We evaluate taste, process, and clarity

• Intro Chat – Casual conversation about fit and interest

• Take-Home Task – A focused, open-ended design–dev challenge (dockerised Ollama prototype + polished UI/UX)

• Final Chat – With our Design Engineering Lead and Maincode Founder