Hi I’m Abhik, Ashby's Co-Founder and VP of Engineering. This role is close to my heart because, as someone who can both design and code, it’s where I’ve always done my best work, but also where I was seen as a rebel and an outsider. I want folks like me to feel at home at Ashby, and so I made Design Engineering a formal role and department that works closely with me. Our first hire was over five years ago, and we’re doubling the team from five to over ten in the next year.

This role truly expects you to design and code. Design Engineer at Ashby isn’t just a Frontend Engineer with new branding, nor is it a Designer vibe coding prototypes. Combining excellence in both is where magic happens. I found that when I put my best effort into both the design and technical implementation of a feature, I had a nimbleness and creativity that was hard to achieve when I did only one or the other. For instance, the UX and UI I envisioned often influenced the data model's design and flexibility, while the understanding of technology's capabilities often simplified or improved the design. This role embraces that.

You’ll work on our most challenging design problems, help others improve their designs by expanding and enhancing our in-house design system, and consult on bespoke design work needed by Product Engineers. To ground it with examples, Design Engineers at Ashby have:

- Redesigned our mobile web app by talking with customers who use it often, wireframing new flows, implementing its design system, and using that system to turn the wireframes into a polished UI.

- Built a set of flexible, composable components in our design system that allow other engineers to build beautiful, consistent setup wizards across our product easily.The Design Engineer role is more common today than five years ago,



but I believe Ashby offers a unique opportunity that few can match:

- This role has always had the commitment of both Benji (CEO & Co-Founder) and me: I’ve held the role, steadfastly championed it since we started hiring in 2020, and haven’t diluted its responsibilities as we’ve grown (in fact, we’ve doubled down).

- You get to shape the UI and UX of a powerful and complex product. Our users need software that helps them move quickly while adapting to their unique workflows and preferences. As a result, our UI isn’t a easy chatbox, but it can’t rely on a sea of knobs and dials either. It needs to feel approachable to someone using it for the first time while offering increasingly powerful ways to customize and automate their work.

Why You Shouldn’t Apply : Design Engineers come in many flavors, not all of which fit our model. Here are some reasons you might not enjoy the role:

- You only want to work on design systems_. While improving our design system is one of many responsibilities, you won’t be able to work on it exclusively.
- You like to do extensive research and user testing before implementation. _The beauty of being part-Engineer is that you can build conviction by shipping to a subset of users (including our own team) and gathering feedback!
- You want everything to be perfect before it gets into a user’s hands. _One of the drivers of our success is that we ship fast . While we appreciate the strive for perfection,



we also realize it doesn’t need to be achieved all at once; instead, we iterate over time, often letting user feedback and business needs drive prioritization.
- You don’t have excellent taste and execution in visual design. _Design Engineers set the bar for visual design in our app and continually improve it, pushing its boundaries with each new feature or redesign.
- You need company-driven process and structure to get your projects across the finish line._ Sprint planning and well-defined project management processes are things you need or look to others to lead. You’d rather focus on the design and technical details.
- You only want to do exciting work._ We’re building a team of kind, collaborative folks. Customer issues and investigations are distributed across the team, including our high-level ICs.
- Junior Design Engineer (This Posting) -**You should have no more than 2 years of industry experience as a designer or engineer. We want to see projects (personal or professional) with at least a couple of users that showcase great visual taste and burgeoning talent in both UI/UX and Engineering.
- Design Engineer - This posting covers both Mid and Senior levels. You have 2+ years of continuous experience (e.g., internships don’t count) as an Engineer or a Designer. You have good proficiency in both Design and Engineering, with exceptional proficiency in the discipline you practice full-time. Regardless of which discipline you’re coming from, we expect experience designing products and shipping code to hundreds of users (even if through side projects).
- Staff Design Engineer - We’re looking for folks who’ve practiced our flavor of Design Engineering professionally. It may not be th

📌 Design Engineer, Canada (Montreal)
🏢 Ashby
📍 Montreal