Founding Design Engineer
Mesa
Design
USD 180k-400k / year + Equity
Posted on May 12, 2026
🏜️
Founding Design Engineer
📍San Francisco | Remote
Sound like a good fit? Email founders@mesa.dev.
Our mission
Mesa is building a new GitHub: not just for code, but for all knowledge work.
The role
We’re seeking a maker: someone with hardcore frontend skills plus taste. You should feel comfortable writing high-performance frontends, building component libraries, and building a well-crafted user experience.
You’ll be responsible for various parts of our user-facing surface area including our web app, docs, APIs and other frontend surfaces. You’ll define and own your own projects, interact with customers, communicate your progress, and see the gaps to proactively improve the product.
Our tech stack is:
Typescript
Tanstack Start with React
ShadCN + Tailwind
Figma
Our team & investors
Mesa is led by two repeat founders
Oliver Gilan (CEO) - prev co-founded Antimetal, ex Census, Microsoft
Benjamin Warren (CTO) - ex YC, Census, Microsoft
We are backed by deeply technical investors including Innovation Endeavors, Essence VC, South Park Commons, Thomas Wolf (CSO @ Hugging Face), Soleio, and others.
Why build Mesa?
Solve a high-leverage problem: A new type of software stack is being born around the development of software driven by agents. Solving part or all of that stack is a great way to create value.
Push product boundaries: The next GitHub won’t just be GitHub with a prettier design, it’ll require fundamentally new interaction modes and workflows.
Build for yourself: A forge for knowledge work must, first and foremost, be useful for the knowledge work that is software development.
You’ll be a good fit if you…
Are driven by product outcomes. You care more about the end-user experience than the tech stack or planning process.
Care about the craft: The world of software is splitting into slop on one side and well-crafted software on the other side. Mesa is focused on building high-quality software.
Want to grind and be recognized. Effort is the only input that is entirely in our control. If you are compelled by a grand mission, high effort feels easy.
Location
Our main office is located in downtown San Francisco and most of the team works from there but we have distributed coworkers who fly out to meet us once a quarter. We generally work from home on the weekends.
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation: $180k - $400k, 0.2% - 1% equity.
Healthcare: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision for you and your family. We also provide $300/mo wellness stipend.
Transportation: We provide a stipend for your commute to the office.
Other: We provide free lunch and dinner when in office.