Design Lead

AE Studio is an LA-based company focused on increasing human agency by making the AGI future go well. We believe that alignment is solvable, and people just haven't tried hard enough.

We are a full-stack R&D group that combines engineering, data science, and product capabilities.

We're fully bootstrapped, so profits from our client work go into internal Skunkworks projects, technical research, and policy engagement. This gives us the freedom to pursue high-risk, high-upside ideas that typical funding models neglect. Our alignment efforts include in-house work, clients like Goodfire AI, and collaborations with Redwood Research and researchers at Anthropic and DeepMind.

About the Role

Our client guarantee is that “We'll treat your project or product like it's our own and do whatever it takes, with a founder-level mentality, to make it spectacularly successful,” and we are looking for highly effective people to help us build exceptional products that increase human agency for our clients and internally.

We're looking for individuals who aren't afraid to embrace new technologies and automate their processes. People who are masters of their craft and have exceptional product sense, strong communication skills, and a can-do attitude, and focus on more impactful work that leverages AI to enhance their strengths and complement their weaknesses, while working closely with clients, project runners, full-stack developers, and data scientists to design products from the ground up.

Is this you? If so, we’d love to chat.

Summary

We're looking for highly effective product designers who can help us build exceptional products that increase human agency. This is a hybrid role: part product designer, part AI-focused product strategist, and part entrepreneurial leader. You'll own high-leverage projects from end to end, whether they are internal Skunkworks efforts, client projects, or with research partners. You will turn abstract ideas into tangible products, identifying ways for how AI can be built into the products you build, understanding where to use and not to use AI, and ensuring progress is visible and aligned with goals. The ideal candidate has a founder-level mentality, embraces new technologies, and leverages AI to speed up their workflow.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the design process from conception to launch for AI and software projects, ensuring high-quality user experiences and impactful outcomes
• Translate vague product ideas into testable design hypotheses, define design scope, and prioritize user experience needs in collaboration with product managers and developers
• Communicate design rationale clearly and effectively with demanding enterprise clients, aligning stakeholders and managing expectations
• Design product-focused interaction models, wireframes, user flows, mockups, and working prototypes in Agile environments
• Work closely with stakeholders and product managers to identify design opportunities that drive product growth and user adoption
• Efficiently create and manage production assets for multiple devices and viewports

What We’re Looking For

• A minimum of 7 years of professional experience in product design
• Proven experience in AI product development, agencies, startup environments, or early-stage ventures
• An entrepreneurial mindset with a bias toward action, scrappiness, and experimentation
• A specialized generalist who can go deep into at least one area of product design, but can do whatever it takes to make the product you are designing successful
• You have a strong sense of what makes a product great & consistently make good product judgments, regardless of the domain and amount of information given
• You have a strong understanding of the technology you are designing for, including generative AI concepts like LLMs, RAG stacks, and agentic workflows, and how they impact user experience design, or can quickly understand the underlying intricacies of a new technology
• You are proficient in using AI to make your workflow more efficient or to create working prototypes using code rapidly, leveraging tools like Cursor, Lovable, or MagicPath
• You have a growth mindset and value progress over perfection
• You manage timelines and expectations effectively
• You are a strong communicator: clear with clients, inspiring with teams, and strategic with stakeholders
• You value direct and honest feedback and can communicate gracefully and effectively, so it betters your partners' (coworkers and clients) work and happiness
• Ability to influence and drive design initiatives across cross-functional teams

Bonus Skills

• Founder/operator experience or deep desire to build a venture
• Exposure to AGI-aligned thinking or AI safety concepts
• Experience in product development
• Motion design experience and knowledge of tools like Rive and Unicorn Studio
• Network or domain expertise in areas where AI can unlock 10x value

Success in This Role Looks Like

• Co-creating effective product strategy
• High client satisfaction and consistent delivery on ambitious timelines
• Impactful prototypes that create real business value
• AI capabilities implemented in useful, reliable ways

What This Role Is Not

• Not a pixel pusher. You own end-to-end product design, from strategy to interactive prototypes
• Not a solo act. You bring others along, unblocking and collaborating effectively
• Not a corporate designer. You’ll work on many initiatives and wear many hats

Why Join AE Studio as a Design Lead

• Build cool things with AI that actually create value for our customers
• Work alongside top 0.1% engineers, researchers, PMs, and founders
• Access to AE’s internal ideas, capital network, and spinout playbook
• Work on passion projects with guidance and support from the whole AE team.

Salary range from $140k/year to $200k/year (if you're based in LA). Not in the range? That's fine, you can still apply and our team may fit you in a more senior position that we're not actively hiring for right now, since we are growing fast and may have other openings soon.

Equity

Working at AE means receiving equity in some of our client projects and in the Skunkworks projects we incubate. The equity granted is priced at a value of $0 when you receive it. If it were otherwise, you’d be forced to pay taxes. But to be clear, there are no free lunches, only the choice of who pays for your sandwich.

At AE, the equity you receive is not free to AE. We invest millions annually in Skunkworks projects - paying our employees to build technology for which no client pays a bill. We receive equity from certain clients, which means we accept less in terms of our billable rate. We then pass that equity on to our employees. Sure it’s priced at $0 on day 1 - a call option on a stock trading at $100 with a strike price of $100 is priced at $0 today for tax purposes, but you’d want to receive that option. If you received that option on a dozen stocks, you’d be fairly confident that some of them would be worth a lot more than $0.

Offering this equity (by investing in Skunkworks or offering clients a lower rate) comes out of AE’s margins. Theoretically, we should be lowering salaries to compensate. But we’re competitive on that front as well. Over the long-term, we believe AE employees who stick around are likely to fare extremely well monetarily (no legal promises). We think long-term. You should too when you choose your employer.

We are looking to hire people who think long term. People create exponentially more value here in their 3rd or 4th year rather than their 1st or 2nd, and that only increases. The value you create leads to more equity issued every year, and you retain it while you remain at AE or at a Skunkworks co that spins out, in order to free up equity for others, which is how we afford to be generous with the equity.

* Disclaimer: If you leave AE on good terms, you can retain 20% of your equity if you continue to send leads our way, share our core values, etc. If you leave AE for your own AE-incubated Skunkworks project (or someone else’s), you retain 100% of your equity. Folks create exponentially more value here in their 3rd and 4th years than their 1st or 2nd - we want folks who think long-term like we do.