Founding Product Designer

About P-1 AI:

We are building an engineering AGI. We founded P-1 AI with the conviction that the greatest impact of artificial intelligence will be on the built world. Our first product is Archie, an AI engineer capable of quantitative intuition over physical product domains and engineering tool use. Archie initially performs at the level of an entry-level design engineer but rapidly gets smarter and more capable. We aim to put an Archie on every engineering team at every industrial company on earth.

Our founding team includes the top minds in deep learning, model-based engineering, and industries that are our customers. We closed a $23 million seed round led by Radical Ventures that includes a number of other AI and industrial luminaries (from OpenAI, DeepMind, etc.).

About the role:
As a Product Design and Frontend Engineer, you’ll be the lead architect of the interaction between our engineering customers and our agentic AI, Archie. You won’t just be designing screens; you will be defining the logic, branches, and conversational flows that allow an AI to assist in complex physical engineering.

You will work directly with our technical team, moving past "high-level concepts" to deliver rigorous, justified design systems. You’ll be the product owner of the design—responsible for taking raw functional requirements and distilling them into a precise UI/UX for engineers to build, and then iterate.

This role can be either remote (based in the US or Canada and with existing work authorization) or based in our San Mateo Bay Area office. If you are remote, you should plan to spend one week out of six co-working with the rest of the company in our San Mateo office. We will support relocation for candidates interested in moving to the Bay Area.

What you’ll do:

• Define the Logic: Map out workflows, common paths, and edge-case branches. Every button and interaction must be justified by a "Why" rooted in engineering utility, not just aesthetics.

• Design for Conversation: Shape how Archie communicates. You will make informed UX suggestions on conversational design, ensuring the AI’s feedback is clear, actionable, and technically accurate.

• Bridge Design and Engineering: Work within a real technical pipeline. You’ll collaborate on testing, QA, and staging processes, ensuring a seamless transition from a concept to a live, automated production environment.

• Build the Signal: Lead our UX research and instrumentation. Lead live customer feedback sessions to develop a clear understanding of how our customers use the product and the best ways to improve their experience.

• Champion the Hardware Persona: Immerse yourself in the world of mechanical engineering. You’ll move beyond software-for-software-people to solve high-friction problems for a deeply specialized user base.

Who you are:

You likely have:

• 4–7+ Years of Experience shipping designs in complex, high-stakes domains.

• A "Systems First" Mindset: You prioritize "How does this work?" over "How does this look?"

• Frontend Development Skills: You can ship what you design, as part of a small and focused frontend development team.

• Confident Autonomy: You are comfortable being the "Product Owner" of design. You don't wait for a spec; you write the spec based on the functional need.

• Analytical Rigor: Experience using front-end analytics and session replay tools to justify design recommendations.

As a bonus, you may have:

• Experience with conversational AI / agentic products.

• Worked at a high-growth scale-up.

• A strong portfolio demonstrating shipped products and systems thinking.

Our values:

Mission obsession & urgency: We are obsessed with building engineering AGI as quickly as possible. We also recognize that as a startup, speed is our most precious competitive advantage. We are constantly asking ourselves what we can do to go faster. We make tradeoffs and sacrifices (personally and in the workplace) in exchange for speed.

Intellectual excellence & curiosity: We ask “what if?” and experiment liberally. We always look for better ways of doing something. We read voraciously. We challenge each other to be better. We surround ourselves with A players and we actively and unapologetically reject B players (and even B+ players⸺because they tend to surround themselves with C players).

Shipping discipline: We treat production with respect. We test and demo our product constantly. We listen attentively to our customers, users, and stakeholders, and we respect our commitments to them. We also respect our commitments to each other and will go the extra mile (or ten or one hundred) to honor them.

Ownership: We all have significant ownership stakes in the company and operate in founder mode. We believe in hierarchical requirements but not in hierarchical information flows. If we see that something is broken or can be done better, we flag it and we fix it. We encourage each other to play with and fix anything and everything... but there’s a clear owner for everything.

Interview process:

• Initial screening call (30 mins)

• Biographical/behavioural interview (45 mins)

• Technical programming interview (60 mins)

• Design interview (60 min)

• CEO interview (30 mins)

Compensation:

Salary: $200k - $250k.

This role includes a significant equity component. We are an early-stage startup, so we favor equity over cash in our current compensation philosophy. This role is best suited for candidates who value long-term ownership and impact over short-term cash optimization. Our benefits include healthcare, dental, and vision insurance, 401k with employer matching, unlimited PTO.