# Founding Design Engineer

**Company:** [Orchard](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/orchard)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Product Design
**Salary:** $125k – $225k/yr
**Experience:** 1+ years
**Skills:** Figma, Claude Code, AI Tools, Prototyping, Product Design, Brand Design, Marketing Design, Visual Design, Industrial Design, Design Systems
**Posted:** 2026-08-20

> Founding Design Engineer will establish Orchard’s design function and lead product, brand, marketing, hardware, and physical-environment design. The role suits a versatile designer with 1–5 years of experience, strong product and visual craft, prototyping fluency, and comfort turning ambiguous ideas into shipped work.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Build and evolve Orchard’s design system.
- Own end-to-end product design for the FruitScope OS software platform, from customer research and prototyping through visual design and iteration.
- Own brand design across the website, sales materials, customer stories, presentations, and company communications.
- Design marketing materials, including tradeshow booths, conference materials, field-day experiences, and product packaging.
- Support the Hardware team with industrial-design thinking, labeling, documentation, and operator experiences.
- Raise the company-wide quality bar through templates, feedback, and design principles.
- Help define the future design organization as the company grows.

## Requirements
- 1–5 years of real-world design experience.
- Portfolio demonstrating exceptional taste, product thinking, and visual craft.
- Range and appetite to work across product, software, brand, marketing, and physical experiences.
- Experience taking ambiguous zero-to-one projects from research through polished, shipped work.
- Fluency in Figma and modern prototyping tools.
- Comfortable using Claude Code and other AI tools to bring designs to life.
- Low-ego, highly iterative working style with willingness to execute details personally.
- Ability to move quickly.

## Compensation & Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage with 100% of employee premiums covered.
- Opportunity to lead design and establish the design function at a rapidly growing company.
- Close-knit, highly driven team with direct access to leadership and cross-functional collaboration.
- Role may sometimes require working late or on weekends.

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