Staff Design Engineer, AI Product

Build functional prototypes and product experiments directly in the Thunderbolt codebase.

Translate ambiguous product ideas, user workflows, partner feedback, and enterprise needs into clear, usable product experiences.

Help define interaction patterns for AI-powered chat, search, research, workflow automation, knowledge retrieval, and enterprise administration.

Use AI-assisted development tools to accelerate prototyping and implementation while maintaining strong judgment around quality, usability, security, accessibility, and maintainability.

Partner closely with product, design, engineering, and enterprise-facing teams to explore, validate, and refine product direction.

Contribute production-quality front-end code where appropriate.

Identify when a prototype should be discarded, refined, generalized, or productionized.

Improve the usability, accessibility, consistency, and polish of the Thunderbolt user experience.

Help develop reusable components, interface patterns, or design-system elements that create leverage for the broader product team.

Bring a user-centered perspective to technical and product discussions, especially where AI behavior, user trust, transparency, permissions, or workflow clarity are important.

Consider enterprise needs when designing product experiences, including data sensitivity, user control, administrative visibility, auditability, and security expectations.

Contribute to a product culture that values speed, clarity, experimentation, maintainability, responsible AI use, and thoughtful user experience.

10+ years of relevant experience in design engineering, front-end engineering, UX engineering, product design with strong technical implementation experience, or a closely related role, with demonstrated leadership and impact beyond individual deliverables.

Strong front-end engineering skills, including experience with modern JavaScript or TypeScript, component-based frameworks, and building prototypes or production features directly in an application codebase.

Strong product and interaction design judgment, including usability, accessibility, information architecture, workflow design, and product polish.

Experience designing, prototyping, or building AI-enabled product experiences, such as chat, search, research tools, agents, automation, knowledge interfaces, or workflow tools where user trust, context, output quality, and human oversight are central to the experience.

Experience translating ambiguous product concepts into usable workflows, prototypes, and shipped product experiences, with the judgment to balance speed, quality, maintainability, learning, and product risk.

Experience providing technical or product leadership through mentoring, cross-functional coordination, reusable patterns, project ownership, or influence beyond individual deliverables.

Practical awareness of AI, privacy, security, and regulatory considerations that may affect product experience, including transparency, user control, permissions, data handling, and trust; familiarity with frameworks such as the EU AI Act, Cyber Resilience Act, HIPAA, or comparable responsible AI, privacy, and security requirements.

Strong communication and collaboration skills, including experience working closely with product managers, designers, engineers, and other cross-functional stakeholders.

Portfolio, case studies, shipped work, or examples demonstrating design-to-code execution, interactive prototypes, or product experience improvements.

Experience with enterprise software, developer tools, productivity tools, collaboration tools, self-hosted software, or other technical user workflows.

Experience contributing to design systems, component libraries, reusable front-end architecture, or shared product interaction patterns.

Familiarity with user research, usability testing, product discovery, feature instrumentation, or rapid experimentation methods.

Experience working in open-source or highly collaborative engineering environments.

In this role, you will help Thunderbolt move from ideas and early workflows into clear, usable, high-quality product experiences. You’ll create prototypes that clarify direction, reusable patterns that help the team move faster, and production experiences that make AI-powered workflows easier to understand and trust.

A successful Staff Design Engineer will help the team decide what is worth building, what needs more testing, and what should not move forward. You’ll raise the quality of Thunderbolt’s user experience while helping the product remain fast-moving, practical, and enterprise-ready.

You’ll work with our passionate staff and open-source community members from all over the globe to support the mission and objectives of MZLA Technologies Corporation. In this role, you’ll also collaborate closely with engineering, product, design, enterprise-facing teams, contractors, and external contributors working on Thunderbolt.

This is a remote, full-time position. Strong communication and documentation skills are essential for effective collaboration across time zones and disciplines.

Fully remote work & schedule flexibility

Company-provided laptop

Annual bonus program

Monthly remote work stipend

Annual professional development stipend

Access to Coursera l earning platform

Industry conferences

Company all-hands and team gatherings

24 days PTO per year (prorated)

Your birthday

Year-end company shutdown

9 wellbeing days

Public holidays

Other paid leave

Quarterly wellbeing stipend for personal / family activities

401(k) / RRSP contributions

Health, dental, & vision insurance

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Employee assistance program

Paid parental leave

Paid sick days

Applicants must reside in and have permanent work authorization for the country location(s) specified in the posting. We are unable to consider applicants outside of these markets at this time. And, we do not provide visa sponsorship.

MZLA believes in the value of diverse creative practices and forms of knowledge, and knows diversity, equity and inclusion are crucial to and enrich the company’s core mission. We encourage applications from everyone, including members of all equity-seeking communities, such as (but not limited to) women, racialized and Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, persons of all sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions.

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race (including hairstyle and texture), religion (including religious grooming and dress practices), gender, gender identity, gender expression, color, national origin, pregnancy, ancestry, domestic partner status, disability, sexual orientation, age, genetic predisposition, medical condition, marital status, citizenship status, military or veteran status, or any other basis covered by applicable laws. MZLA will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics or any other unlawful behavior, conduct, or purpose.

We will ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, as appropriate. Please contact us at hiringaccommodations@thunderbird.net to request accommodation.

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