Senior Design Engineer (Remote, US)

The Role: Senior Design Engineer

As a Senior Design Engineer, you will work at the intersection of design and engineering, splitting your time roughly 50/50 between UI/UX design and hands-on front-end implementation (flexible toward 60/40 engineering and beyond for the right person). You will own both the design experience and its technical realization for the products that empower our content creators to develop the content teachers and students use, with a focus on building a product that improves every day.

Why You’ll Love This Role:

• User & Business Understanding: Articulate user and business problems, engage frequently with users to surface pain points, and propose thoughtful, feasible design solutions.
• Design to Code Translation: Translate design intent into high-quality, accessible, production-ready front-end code that faithfully matches the design vision.
• Technical Expertise: Develop deep fluency in our engineering ecosystem (architecture, component libraries, APIs, build tooling, constraints) to unblock designers and bridge design and engineering.
• Design System Ownership: Establish and maintain a living design system as code, ensuring accurate design sources of truth, managing the component library, and its documentation in Storybook.
• Principle Development: Build and maintain a shared repository of design principles for consistent quality and scalability.
• Prototyping: Prototype complex interactions, states, and motion to validate ideas quickly and communicate intent precisely.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner closely with Design, Engineering, UX Research, Data, Content, and Marketing to align on problems, define solutions, and ensure feasibility.

Why You’re a Great Fit:

• Experience: 6+ years spanning product/UX design and front-end engineering, with genuine depth in both (expert-level Figma, proficiency in React, TypeScript, modern HTML/CSS).
• Technical Skills: Backend or full-stack experience is a strong plus. Proven track record of taking designs from concept to shipped, pixel-accurate, accessible code. Strong understanding of web and mobile-web platform technologies.
• Design Systems: Hands-on experience building and maintaining design systems as code (including Storybook) and incorporating accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG).
• Research-Informed Design: Leverage quantitative and qualitative research on user pain points and goals to inform design direction and document decisions clearly.
• Collaboration: Give and receive actionable feedback with a collaborative mindset, partnering cross-functionally at all stages of the product life cycle.
• AI Tools: Actively leverage AI tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor, v0, AI features in Figma) as a force multiplier for design judgment.
• Mindset: "Try anything once" attitude, unintimidated by unfamiliar tools or problem spaces, eager to experiment and learn quickly.
• Bonus: Knowledge of Motion Design or animation using Rive.

About Newsela:

Newsela is a leading education technology company dedicated to meaningful classroom learning for every student. We deliver integrated, AI-powered solutions designed to unlock student engagement, empower teachers, and drive meaningful learning outcomes. Our suite of products supports knowledge and skill development, writing practice, daily instruction, assessment, and data-informed decision-making across K–12 classrooms. Grounded in learning science research, Newsela’s solutions integrate content, assessment, and analytics to help educators track progress, understand student outcomes, and deliver high-impact instruction that supports every learner.

Why You’ll Love Working at Newsela:

• Health & Wellness: Comprehensive medical benefits, employer contribution to premiums and HSA accounts, gym reimbursement, pet insurance, free Calm app access, Rocket Lawyer, and more.
• Work From Home: Fully remote company with a monthly tech stipend.
• Family Support: Inclusive benefits including parental leave, fertility support, and adoption assistance.
• Financial Wellbeing: 401(k) plan with employer match.
• Time Off: Flexible PTO, paid sick time off, company holidays, plus winter break (Dec 24th - Jan 1st).
• Professional Development: Annual learning and development allowance for external training, classes, workshops, and conferences.
• Make A Difference: Contribute to the future of education and improve the lives of students and teachers.

Compensation:

• Base Compensation Range: $105,000—$125,000 USD per year.
• Total Compensation: Includes incentive stock options and benefits.
• Note: Final compensation is determined by individual skills, qualifications, and experience.