Founding Design Engineer

About Finta

Have you tried renewing a driver’s license online? The site looks stuck in 2000, it is confusing and slow. That is how most accounting and tax software still feels. The space is crowded with sales teams who rely on fear to close deals, and the result is bad experiences justified by “compliance.”

Finta is changing that. We automate bookkeeping, file taxes quickly and compliantly, and give companies real-time financial metrics. Our goal is simple: to remove the manual, tedious parts of finance so that smart people can focus on hard problems.

We raised $2M from Y Combinator, Mercury’s CEO, leaders at Mercury, Brex, and Ramp. Since launching in 2023, we have grown organically through word of mouth and now serve hundreds of paying customers. See what they say at www.finta.com.

Role

We’re looking for a Founding Design Engineer to raise the bar on how Finta looks and feels. You’ll sit at the intersection of design and engineering, someone who obsesses over animation curves, spacing, and interaction details, and also ships production code.

You won’t be designing in Figma and handing off specs. You’ll be designing in the browser, building the components and systems that make Finta feel like the best software our customers have ever used.

This is a founding role. You’ll be one of the first people shaping how Finta feels, and you’ll have an outsized impact on the product, the brand, and the culture of craft at the company. Over time, you’ll have the opportunity to build and lead the design engineering function as we grow.

What you’ll do

• Build and evolve Finta’s design system: the components, tokens, patterns, and motion language that everything is built on
• Ship polished, production-ready UI across product, marketing, and our website
• Create reusable building blocks like data tables, filters, navigation, loading states, animations, and interactive patterns
• Bring modern interaction design to a Rails codebase with fluid transitions, micro-interactions, and the kind of craft you see in tools like Linear, Cursor, and Vercel
• Explore what’s possible at the edge of UI in the age of AI: streaming interfaces, agent status patterns, real-time feedback, and new interaction paradigms
• Work directly with the CEO and engineering team to shape what we build and how it feels
• Set the quality bar for every pixel that ships
• Influence product direction, not just execution. You’ll have a voice in what we build, not just how it looks.

You’ll be a good fit if you

• Have deep expertise in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You think in the browser, not in abstractions.
• Have production experience with server-rendered stacks: Rails, Hotwire, Turbo, Stimulus, Tailwind, ViewComponent, or similar
• Obsess over details like animation timing, easing curves, hover states, spacing, and color. The things most people don’t notice but everyone feels.
• Use AI tools daily to move faster (Cursor, Claude, Conductor, or similar) and can show real examples of shipping with them
• Have a strong visual eye and design sensibility, even if your title has always been “engineer”
• Can point to work you’ve shipped that made people say “damn, this feels good”
• Ship fast and iterate. You’d rather put something real in front of users than polish a mockup.
• Are excited about being early. You want to define the standard, not follow one.

Why join

• Design is at the heart of everything we do. This isn’t a company where engineering overrules design.
• You’ll define the design system and quality bar from the ground up
• Ship consequential work used by hundreds of startups
• Join a small, mission-driven team that values craft and user experience
• 10+ years of runway backed by top investors
• Real ownership and influence over product direction, architecture, and early hiring decisions

Why you should not join Finta

• You prefer designing in Figma and handing off to engineers
• You think animations and micro-interactions are unnecessary polish
• You think trying new tools like Paper is a waste of your time
• You prefer non-AI tools and stay away from MCPs
• You prefer heavy structure and narrow scope
• You’re not excited about AI or what it means for product interfaces
• You need step-by-step direction
• You’re looking for a remote job to coast

Tools and stack

• Ruby on Rails with server-rendered views
• Hotwire (Turbo + Stimulus) for interactivity
• Tailwind CSS and ViewComponent for the design system
• GitHub, Linear, Figma, Paper, Slack
• AI tools: Cursor, Claude, Conductor, and whatever you want to use

Our values

• Simplicity: Be concise, clear, and efficient
• Endurance: Act with integrity and think long term
• Decisive: Bias for action and learn quickly
• Passion: Bring dedication and energy to the work
• Open minded: Hold strong opinions and question them rigorously
• Selfless: Set egos aside and win as a team

Compensation

• $120-$180k plus 1-3% equity
• Visa sponsorship and relocation support available.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Meals, gym membership, professional education benefits
• Monthly team events and annual company offsite

IMPORTANT

In addition to applying, please email andy at finta dot com with your proudest designs.

• Intro interview (40 mins)
• Portfolio review (40 mins)
• Live exercise (3 hrs)
• Culture interview (40 mins)
• Offer