Senior Software Engineer - Design

Job description

WHAT IS LOANCRATE? We started Loancrate to make home-buying simpler and less expensive for lenders and borrowers (us!). Today, mortgage lenders are stuck running their companies on software products built 20 years ago. These products are slow, unstable, and don't lead to material improvements in efficiency. When using these systems, the average human cost to originate a loan is still over $11,000. Loancrate builds AI-native tooling to automate mortgage workflows. Our ultimate goal is fully automated origination, which has the potential to save lenders over $16B in operating expense per year. Since starting in 2020, our remote team has enabled our customers to power >$85 billion in new home loans. We are a group of people excited to tackle the complexity of the home-lending industry. We care about collaboration, very open communication covering the good & the bad so that we learn from our decisions quickly, and ultimately having fun while we're building. You'll fit in well if you like diving deep quickly! THE OPPORTUNITY Our dreams are big and we have much to build! We're looking for someone who is equal parts engineer and artist - someone who obsesses over the details that most people wouldn't notice, and loses sleep over a transition that's two milliseconds off. You'll be the person who makes Loancrate feel as good as it works - owning the quality of our UI from pixel to production in collaboration with Design and Product. Our product handles some of the most complex, high-stakes workflows in financial services, and great design is how we make that feel approachable and trustworthy for our customers. If you're the type who notices micro-interactions before anyone asks, who treats delight as a requirement rather than a nice-to-have, and who brings genuine craft to every component you ship - you'll fit right in here. If pixel-perfect isn't your thing, this probably isn't the right role. WHAT TO EXPECT In this role at Loancrate, you'll own design quality end-to-end - from early wireframes to shipped, production-quality UI. A quick note before diving in: we're building an AI-native product, and we rely on AI heavily in our own internal workflows too. If that excites you, you'll thrive here - if it gives you pause, this probably isn't the right fit. Within your first month, you'll be contributing to work such as... - Designing and building core UI components for our AI-powered mortgage workflow tools, balancing information density with usability for power users. - Establishing and maintaining a component library and design system that gives our engineering team a coherent visual language to build on. - Partnering with product and engineering to translate complex workflow requirements into intuitive, elegant user experiences. - Writing production-quality React components in TypeScript that bring your designs to life - you don't hand off, you ship. - Defining design standards, patterns, and guidelines that scale as the team grows. CORE RESPONSIBILITIES - Own the end-to-end design process for features - from discovery and wireframing through high-fidelity Figma design and final implementation in React/TypeScript. - Build and maintain a design system and component library, using shadcn/ui variants and a dedicated component package with documented permutation coverage. - Write accessible, production-quality React components, ensuring correct ARIA, keyboard, and focus management. - Collaborate with PMs and engineers during discovery to ensure designs are user-centered and technically feasible. - Define and enforce visual and interaction design standards; audit and drive consistency across the product. - Maintain Figma libraries, component documentation, and design-to-code handoff tooling. - Partner with engineering to ensure design system components are implemented correctly and consistently across the codebase. - Design for accessibility (WCAG compliance) and advocate for inclusive design practices. - Develop and document UX patterns for complex interaction paradigms (multi-step workflows, AI-generated content, data-dense tables). - Contribute to product strategy discussions and motion/microinteraction guidelines. - Audit existing UI for consistency and drive improvements. - Scope design work and make pragmatic tradeoffs between design quality and delivery velocity. - Help establish and document our design principles and visual identity. - Mentor team members on design thinking, UI best practices, and frontend implementation. TECH STACK - React + TypeScript, Vite - Styling: Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, class-variance-authority for variants - API: GraphQL/Apollo Client; types generated and shared via monorepo - Monorepo: Turborepo + PNPM; workspace packages for schema, shared types, and UI primitives - Testing: React Testing Library + MSW; snapshot testing consolidated per component story - Accessibility: Focus/keyboard support and ARIA semantics in shared components PREFERRED SKILLS AND BACKGROUND (It's okay not to have all of these things - these are just some skills we are excited about!) - 🖼 Portfolio showing high-craft visual/interaction design in complex B2B/SaaS, with dense layouts and strong keyboard/focus patterns. - ⚛️ Production React + TypeScript proficiency; comfortable shipping components for broad consumption. - 🧩 Experience building design systems with component libraries, variant APIs, and documented stories. - 🎨 Deep Figma skills: variables, auto-layout, variants, prototyping, library hygiene. - ♿ Accessibility proficiency: WCAG, ARIA, color/contrast, motion sensitivity. - 🤖 Comfort designing AI UX: uncertainty, intervention affordances, streaming content, error states. - 📊 Facility with data-dense UIs: tables, filtering/sorting, bulk actions. - 🔬 User research skills for fast iteration: task-based tests, heuristic reviews, telemetry-informed iteration. - 🚀 Product mindset; crisp written communication and rationale; bias to ship without compromising correctness. PERKS & BENEFITS - Robust medical coverage (100% of employee + family premiums covered) - Vision & dental coverage - 401(k) - HSA / FSA - Access to lender partner’s employee loan program - Remote-first culture - work from wherever you do your best work - Flexible time off - we trust you to manage your time Loancrate is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic.