Founding Product Designer

Role Overview

Sekai is hiring its first design hire: a Founding Product Designer to own the user experience end-to-end. This is a true UX ownership role focused on identifying what’s broken or confusing, defining better product experiences from first principles, and shaping the product DNA, visual language, and design system.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end design across key mobile and web product surfaces
• Drive UX for major product flows and make clear product experience decisions
• Improve quality, clarity, and polish across the product
• Define and evolve product DNA, visual language, interaction patterns, and design systems
• Partner closely with founders, product, and engineering to shape and ship new experiences
• Use modern AI and design tools to explore, prototype, and iterate quickly

Requirements

• 2+ years of product design experience (ideally consumer or mobile-first)
• Strong UX judgment and product sense
• Strong visual design skills and high product taste
• Ability to design from scratch and bring structure to ambiguous problems
• Systems thinking; experience building reusable patterns and/or design systems
• High ownership and comfort in a fast-moving startup
• Mandarin Chinese required
• Comfortable working closely with engineers
• Highly AI-native and comfortable using modern tools in the daily workflow

Nice to Have

• Experience with consumer social, creator, gaming, or AI products
• Frontend or engineering background
• Ability to prototype in code or do lightweight frontend implementation
• Experience as an early/founding designer at a startup

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive base salary + meaningful equity
• Full health insurance