Design Engineer

About the role

When someone dies, their family inherits a mountain of admin. A will is the single most useful thing that makes it smaller, but only if it’s correct, current and actually says what the person meant. That’s the bar every screen we ship has to clear, and it has to feel calm while it does.

As our design engineer, you’ll work across every team rather than inside one. You’ll own the component library and design tokens, take features from rough idea to shipped interface, and decide what good looks like.

Nobody will hand you a pixel-perfect mock to implement. You’ll make the mock, then make it real, then watch how people use it and change it.

The team

You’ll work with every team: the engineers building Ollie, the tools our advisors and Estate Planning Consultants use every day, and our web presence. You’ll be closest to Product and the team leads, and the design system is yours to shape.

We work in small, stable teams that own a product area end to end, from the first conversation with legal to the alert that fires if it breaks. Nobody hands you a ticket and walks away. Teams decide how to solve the problems in front of them, and often which problems are worth solving at all. Decisions are written down, reviewed kindly and revisited when we learn something new.

We’re AI-native. Frontier models, best-in-class agentic tooling, and nobody counts tokens. That pushes the job away from boilerplate and towards the parts that need a person: architecture, judgement, and getting the detail right. We ship to production 20+ times a day across 7+ services.

What you’ll do

Most weeks are a mix of designing, building and unblocking other teams. Some of the work you’ll pick up:

• Design flows and interfaces in Figma, then build them in React. Same person, same week.
• Own the component library and design tokens, and keep Figma and code saying the same thing.
• Make hard things feel calm. Someone planning for their own death shouldn’t have to fight a form.
• Hold the line on accessibility. Our users span every age and ability.
• Prototype fast, so Product and engineers can react to something real instead of a paragraph.
• [ROLE-SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITY]

What you’ll ship in your first 90 days

• [ ]Week one: ship a UI change to production, paired with someone who knows the codebase.
• [ ]Audit the component library against Figma and fix the worst of the drift.
• [ ]Take one feature from rough idea to shipped interface, designed and built by you. [e.g. FEATURE]
• [ ][90-DAY OUTCOME]

What we’re looking for

We care more about how you approach problems than a list of keywords. That said, here’s what tends to make someone successful in this role.

What you’ll work with

design    = "figma"                        # components, variables, auto layout
languages = ["typescript"]
framework = ["react", "next.js"]
also      = "vue"                          # parts of the estate
system    = "[COMPONENT LIBRARY / DESIGN SYSTEM]"
agents    = ["claude code", "whatever you're fastest in"]
quality   = ["[TEST / VISUAL REGRESSION TOOLING]"]

The honest bits

Every product has them. Better you hear it from us.

debt

Not every screen lives in the design system yet. Some are older and look it. Deciding what to fix first is your call.

range

You’re one person across every team. Saying “not yet” is part of the job, and we’ll back you when you do.

regs

Regulated, sensitive data. Some changes need a second pair of eyes from legal, and that’s on purpose.

pace

We ship often, but “move fast and break things” isn’t an option when the thing is someone’s will.

You’ll probably enjoy this if

• +You can’t leave a misaligned label alone, and you know how to fix it in code.
• +You’d rather ship something simple and kind than impressive and confusing.
• +You can talk about death plainly. Our users are planning for it or living through it.

Don’t tick every box? Apply anyway. We hire for how you think, not a checklist.

What we offer

Listed, not teased. If something matters to you and isn’t here, ask in your first call.

holiday

27 days + bank holidays + your birthday

pension

3% contribution

working pattern

Hybrid. In the office Tuesday to Thursday at Monument, London

contract

Permanent

learning

Time carved out for it, plus budget agreed case by case

a will, on us

A free will for you, and a discount for friends and family

tools

Whatever makes you fastest. Frontier models, agentic tooling, no token budget.

ownership

Real decisions from week one. You’ll be trusted with the call and backed when it’s hard.

1. 1

   Intro call30 min · video

   A relaxed conversation with the hiring manager about what you’ve worked on and what you’re looking for. Ask us anything.

   you’ll meet the hiring manager · nothing to prepare

2. 2

   Meet our People team30 min · video

   A conversation about how you like to work, what you need from a team to do your best work, and the practical stuff: start dates, adjustments, anything you’re unsure about.

   you’ll meet our People team · nothing to prepare

3. 3

   Portfolio and build session~2.5 hours · on site

   Two parts. First, walk us through two pieces of work you’re proud of, from first sketch to production, and the compromises along the way. Then take a small design problem from Figma to working React on your own laptop. Look things up, use agents, think out loud. No take-home.

   you’ll meet the team · bring your work and your laptop

4. 4

   Final conversation45 min

   Meet our founder. Talk about where Octopus Legacy is going, where you’d fit in it, and anything you still want to know. It runs both ways.

   you’ll meet our founder · bring your questions

5. ✓

   Decisionwithin 48 hours

   A clear yes or no, with written feedback either way. If it’s a yes, we’ll talk through the offer on a call. No exploding deadlines.

   from the hiring manager