AI Design Engineer - Momentum
WFA Digital Insight
Virtuous is looking for a senior engineer who treats the design system as a product rather than a static library. The role sits at the intersection of design, code, and AI, giving the owner responsibility for tokens, primitives, components and the adoption pipeline that lets engineers ship without friction. What makes this opening unique is the expectation to embed AI guardrails that keep automatically generated interfaces on‑brand, and to weave accessibility directly into the system’s core. Candidates will spend every week in the codebase, turning real surface work into feedback for the system, rather than operating from a distant design file. Understanding how engineers consume patterns and how to evolve them without fragmentation is key before you apply.
Job Description
ABOUT US Virtuous is on a mission to inspire global generosity by helping nonprofits build better relationships with their donors. We offer a modern software platform that provides mid-sized charities with elegant tools for fundraising, marketing, volunteerism, and online giving. Our talented team is driven to disrupt the status quo in the nonprofit sector. We are hungry, humble, and committed to delivering best-in-class software solutions, customer success interactions, and sales experiences to the world’s leading nonprofits We also recognize the importance of giving back and making a difference in the communities where we live and work. That's why we practice radical generosity by volunteering at nonprofits or going the extra mile for our team and the customers we serve. We take our work seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We believe that life is too short not to love what you do. The ideal candidate for Virtuous embodies our values by: - Asking questions with a spirit of curiosity - Giving feedback freely with candor & grace, welcoming it in return - Displaying a passion for philanthropy and technology - Serving with joy. Everyone is willing to make the coffee!
- Celebrating the wins & milestones of others - Assuming good intent & demonstrating trust in others - Pursuing relationships with people different from themselves & creates space to be human Find our core values & more here https://virtuous.org/company/about/. POSITION SUMMARY At Virtuous, the design system is the leverage point for a unified experience across the entire product surface.
- The operating model.
- Adoption. You treat engineers as your users. The system wins when building on it is faster than building around it, so you instrument coverage, watch for drift, and drive system adoption.
- Production interface work.
- The AI guardrail. You make the system the thing that keeps generated interfaces on brand. When an engineer or an agent builds a screen, the system should make the right thing the easy thing.
- Accessibility and the craft bar. You build accessibility into the system so what we ship is also accessible.
- The bridge from design to production. You work with product designers to turn validated patterns into system defaults, and you close the gap between what was designed and what actually shipped.
- Documentation and enablement.
- Metrics. You influence the numbers that prove the system works: component coverage across surfaces, adoption, efficiency, and throughput. HOW YOU WORK - AI forward operator. You use AI as a default part of how you build, and you have opinions about what agents should own and what humans should own, because you have shipped things that way.
- Systems thinker with a product mindset.
- Influence over authority. Nobody has to use what you build. They use it because it is faster and better. That standard keeps you honest.
- Pragmatic about process.
- Taste and rigor together. You care what it looks like and you care how it holds up under load. Both, always.
- Human centered. We believe AI should make the human parts of fundraising better, not replace them.
- Ownership over territory. You see what needs to happen and you drive it with a bias toward starting. YOU MUST HAVE - 6+ years building production interfaces in a modern frontend stack, with real ownership of what shipped - Direct experience owning a design system used by multiple teams across multiple products, in production.
Nice to Have
Design token pipelines, Storybook, or equivalent. Figma fluency including Code Connect or MCP. Experience making a system consumable by AI tooling. Fundraising technology, nonprofit CRM, or the nonprofit sector. WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE - The system is in code, distributed in a way that fits how our engineers actually work, and they reach for it by default - Coverage is growing on the modern core, and new surfaces ship on the design system without a gate - Teams can ship a new pattern this cycle without going around the system, and good patterns are getting promoted into the core - Generated interfaces land on brand because the system makes it hard not to - Accessibility is structural rather than remembered - Throughput is increasing, cycle time is decreasing - Designers and engineers are working from the same source of truth What We Offer - Market competitive pay leveraging Carta data - Employee recognition through Bonusly (birthdays, anniversaries, achievements, etc.) - 401(k) retirement plan with company matching- 50% match up to 6% of compensation after 90 days - We value our employee’s work-life balance and encourage taking advantage of Unlimited PTO - Supportive time off including paid volunteer days and company holidays - Employer-contributed healthcare benefits, encompassing medical, dental, and vision coverage, with plans available for dependents and choices for Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA).- 12 weeks primary parent leave, 4 weeks secondary parent leave - full pay (adoption as well) - We pride ourselves on Community and host exciting company outings and events.
How to Stand Out
- Showcase a portfolio that includes live components or code samples demonstrating your design‑system contributions.
- Highlight any experience building AI‑driven UI guardrails or accessibility features in past projects.
- Prepare to discuss how you measure adoption and drift in a design system, using concrete metrics you have tracked.
- Bring examples of documentation or enablement material you have created for engineering audiences.
- During interviews, emphasize your Excel skills for reporting and metric analysis, as the role relies on data‑driven decisions.
- Ask about the team’s operating model for pattern promotion to ensure you understand how new components become core.
- Be wary of vague expectations around “ownership” without clear definitions of reporting lines or decision‑making authority.
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