This listing does not state pay. Across 31 open design engineer listings that state pay, the middle half runs $110,000 to $214,000 and the median is $162,500.

Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.

Design Engineer salaries by state · Check your own pay

How AI is used in this kind of work

AI use among mechanical engineers is little observed so far. Measured exposure for mechanical engineers: 8% (little observed).

Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.

Check how this applies to your own job

Skills this job asks for

Say which you have and which you want to build. We use it to match you to jobs like this one.

About the job

About InstaLILY

InstaLILY is an AI products and infrastructure company that puts execution at the frontier of enterprise AI. That work begins with Lily™ , the world's first AI Forward Deployed Engineer, which learns how a business works, builds the software it needs, and goes live in days. It does not leave when the work ships; it stays and keeps the software working as the business changes. Lily runs wherever the work happens, in the cloud, on-premise, or at the edge, through InstaLILY's Small Data Center, built with NVIDIA technology. Founded in 2023 by Amit Shah and Sumantro Das, InstaLILY has raised nearly $100 million from Energize Capital, Insight Partners, and Home Depot Ventures. Headquartered in New York, with offices in San Francisco, London, and Toronto, InstaLILY serves leading companies across construction, industrial distribution, logistics, healthcare, and other operationally intensive industries. Learn more at https://instalily.ai/ .

The Traction

Revenue grew 5x over the past year, and Lily has driven over $200M in new annual sales for a single customer. We serve some of the largest operators in our industries, including SRS Distribution (part of The Home Depot family), United Rentals, and Henry Schein, and we work closely with the Google DeepMind and NVIDIA ecosystems.

How We Work

We work in small teams with real ownership: clear problems, direct access to the customers whose work you're changing, and room to ship. Your code runs in live production systems inside billion-dollar operations, so you see your impact directly. People who do well here want that proximity to the work. We're growing fast, and the people who join now shape what this company becomes. Everything runs on three principles: Customers, Culture, and Code.

What’s Design Engineering?

Design engineers bring “taste” into engineering. They ship high-craft UI while building the systems, tooling, and workflows that help teams move faster and build better products in an AI-native environment. At InstaLILY, design engineers own production UI quality, design systems as infrastructure, and prototyping workflows that turn emerging ideas into shipped experiences.

What You'll Be Doing

Shape AI-native product experiences

li]:before:content-['–'] [&>li]:before:absolute [&>li]:before:ml-[-.875rem]">

Design and build customer-facing experiences across chat, voice, copilots, and agentic workflows.

Turn concepts, prototypes, and product ideas into polished, production-ready interfaces.

Bring strong front-end craft to interaction design, responsiveness, and implementation detail.

Build design systems as infrastructure

li]:before:content-['–'] [&>li]:before:absolute [&>li]:before:ml-[-.875rem]">

Build and evolve a design system in code as shared product infrastructure, across core components, tokens, patterns, and documentation.

Help make the system machine-consumable, so both humans and AI-assisted tools can generate consistent interfaces from shared foundations.

Bring taste to what ships

li]:before:content-['–'] [&>li]:before:absolute [&>li]:before:ml-[-.875rem]">

Bring strong judgment to UI craft and implementation quality, making thoughtful decisions around interaction design, accessibility, performance, and maintainability.

Help ensure what ships feels clear, cohesive, and intentional, with the discernment to refine details, uphold standards, and know what elevates the product experience.

Improve tooling and team workflows

li]:before:content-['–'] [&>li]:before:absolute [&>li]:before:ml-[-.875rem]">

Build internal tools that support teams across engineering, design, and functions like sales, operations, marketing, and recruiting.

Evaluate and integrate modern AI tools, then turn those learnings into secure, repeatable workflows the broader team can build on.

Qualification

li]:before:content-['–'] [&>li]:before:absolute [&>li]:before:ml-[-.875rem]">

1+ years of experience in front-end engineering, design engineering, or product design with code.

Strong foundation in React, TypeScript, HTML, and CSS.

Sharp eye for visual quality, interaction detail, and product craft.

Experience building with design systems, reusable UI, and modern prototyping workflows.

Interest in AI-native product experiences and how AI tools are changing the way products are built.

Strong collaboration skills across design and engineering.

Builder mindset: proactive, thoughtful, and excited to learn by making.

A portfolio that demonstrates strong UI craft, prototyping ability, and thoughtful implementation in code.

Compensation and Benefits

li]:before:content-['–'] [&>li]:before:absolute [&>li]:before:ml-[-.875rem]">

Salary Range: $100,000 - $120,000 per year, commensurate with experience

Equity: Generous stock options awards, and refreshers for top performers

Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, 401K, in-office Lunch reimbursement, Wellbeing Stipend, Generous Parental leave, PTO and 10 US Federal Holidays, and more!

Quality Over Quantity

To ensure a focused, high-quality hiring experience, we kindly ask candidates to limit their applications to 3 open requisitions at any given time . Applying strategically to roles that best align with your skills and career goals gives you the highest chance of standing out. Have you interviewed with us in the past 12 months? We encourage you to reach out directly to your previous interviewer rather than submitting a new application.

InstaLILY is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. If you require an accommodation, please let us know, and we will work with you to meet your needs.

We use AI to assist with parts of our application review process. If you’d like to opt out, please contact our recruiting team ( lily.hiring@instalily.ai ).