Founding Design Engineer

Job description

**About us** Our vision is to become the marketplace for everything expensive, specialized, and difficult to move. We’re building the infrastructure that powers the procurement and disposition of assets across America’s essential industries, automating everything from discovery and payments to freight, warranty, and financing. Today, Garage operates in cities and towns across all 50 states and has surpassed $100M+ in annualized transaction volume on the platform. Our mission is to save local governments and essential services businesses time and money. We started with fire departments two years ago and have since expanded into EMS and heavy-duty, launching new verticals while growing revenue >10x last year. If you move fast, hold a high bar, and want meaningful ownership in building a category-defining company, Garage is the place to do it. **About the role** Good design is a core feature of our platform. When people are looking to buy and sell assets that are valued as much as an actual house, it’s important the product experience is clean, smooth, and intuitive. Since the beginning, we’ve been very intentional about maintaining a high bar for product design. We love going into the details, talking to our customers, and building the pixels nobody asked for but always wanted. You’ll join a small team working directly with the Co-founder and CTO. - Build and ship polished, production-quality UI across our core products (including a mobile app). - Craft UI details including layouts, typography, responsiveness, motion, and micro-interactions using Tailwind CSS. - Contribute to shared UI foundations including components, patterns, and design tokens. - Work across the stack using React, Next.js, and TypeScript to deliver fast, reliable interfaces. - Optimize for performance, accessibility, and maintainability without compromising on design. - Raise the bar for frontend craft through code reviews, critiques, and shared standards. **What we’re looking for** - Strong eye for design and interaction with taste you can both defend and implement. - Comfort working across design, product, and engineering to ship work. - You think in systems, not tickets. - You get excited by operating in a high-performance startup environment. - You would love to be customer-facing. - You play for the front of the jersey, having strong opinions, a willingness to question the status quo, and a drive to become a real expert in whatever space you work in. All while being a great team communicator. **Required** - Strong experience with React, Next.js, Tailwind, and TypeScript in production environments. - Exceptional CSS skills with a proven ability to build pixel-perfect, resilient user interfaces. - Portfolio that demonstrates high-craft frontend or design engineering work. **Nice to have** - Startup experience as a technical co-founder or early engineer at a Series A/B/C startup. - 4+ years of experience. **Our Values** - **Take Big Swings.** We are here to transform an overlooked industry—not make small improvements around the edges. We set ambitious goals, take calculated risks, and push through setbacks. We never trade lasting impact for short-term comfort. - **Customers Come First.** Our customers operate in an industry burdened by slow, expensive, and outdated processes. We attack the problems that cost them the most and measure our success by the time and money we give back to them. - **Play For the Front of the Jersey.** We put the mission ahead of ourselves. We challenge each other directly, support each other relentlessly, and step up whenever the team needs us. We win together, and we have fun doing it. - **All Gas, No Ego.** Building something that matters takes relentless effort. We move fast, take ownership, and see hard problems through. When we fall short, we own it, learn quickly, and come back stronger. **Why Join Garage?** - **Do work that matters.** Our platform helps people buy the assets that local communities rely on to keep their communities safe, clean, and operating every day. - **Help shape the company.** Join as one of our first 40 employees and work directly alongside the founders. - **Make an outsized impact.** You’ll join a talent-dense, high-performance team where every person moves the company forward. - **Build from a strong foundation.** We’ve raised $18M, including a $13.5M Series A, from Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, Infinity Ventures, FJ Labs, and other leading investors. **What we offer** - Competitive salary and stock options - 100% medical, dental and vision insurance coverage - Unlimited PTO (in addition to company observed holidays) - Daily lunch & dinner (for employees based in NYC) - $100/month wellness stipend - 401(k) w/ employer match - Pre-tax commuter benefits - Annual team offsite - Relocation assistance *We realize applying for jobs can feel daunting at times. We don’t expect you to check all the qualification boxes and encourage you to apply if you have experience in some of the areas.* **Equal Opportunity** As an equal-opportunity employer, we are committed to building an inclusive environment where you can be you. We work hard to evaluate all employees and job applicants consistently, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, natural origin, age, disability, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected class.