# Porter — Design Engineer Type: Full-time | On-site (5 days/week) | New York City, NY Compensation: $200,000–$280,000 + competitive equity Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: None Available Reports to: Justin, Co-Founder & Design Lead ## About Porter Porter is the cloud platform for modern tech companies — the power of the cloud without the complexity or cost, letting the next generation of builders run anything, anywhere. It lets top engineering teams instantly create production-grade infrastructure on any cloud provider (AWS, Azure, GCP), deploy their application code, and monitor and manage it, so they can focus on building product instead of managing infrastructure. Founded: 2020 | Team size: 11–50 | Funding: Series A (profitable; 8x ARR growth since 2022) Industry: Developer infrastructure / Tech for Tech Website: porter.run Office: New York City (HQ) + San Francisco ## Why Candidates Should Join - Own the craft end-to-end: Not a handoff role — you design it, you implement it, you own it, from micro-interactions and core flows to a full rebrand rollout. - Direct founder collaboration: Work directly with Justin (Co-Founder & Design Lead); the closest reference point for the type of person they want is Vercel's design engineering team. - Full autonomy: No product team — engineers own the full development lifecycle, talk to customers directly, and decide what to build, in two-week project cycles. ## Intake Call Summary - No text intake summary is present on the role page. An intake video is posted but was not transcribed — request the intake notes or transcript from Contrario if a summary is needed to finalize scoring. ## The Role Porter is hiring a Design / Micro-Interaction Engineer to own the craft and feel of the Porter platform — information architecture, core product flows, micro-interactions, and a full rebrand rollout. This is not a handoff role: you design it, you implement it, you own it. ### What You'll Be Doing - Own design and front-end implementation of core Porter product flows end-to-end - Lead the rebrand rollout across the Porter website and product - Define information architecture and design, create and monitor flows for the platform's main objects - Work directly with Justin to align on design sense, then go above and beyond it - Loop into in-flight work streams, give design feedback, and progressively take on owned projects - Talk to customers directly and bring product intuition to what gets built - Work in two-week project cycles with full autonomy to propose and drive your own work Tech stack: Figma + hands-on front-end implementation in code (specific framework/stack not stated on the role page). ## Requirements - 5+ years design or micro-interaction engineering experience with a portfolio demonstrating craft and curiosity - Comfortable implementing designs in code, not just Figma — an independent force who polishes the product without needing frontend engineer bandwidth - Pre-AI technical frontend experience who actually understands the code they're pushing - AI-native mindset, uses AI to move faster - Based in or relocating to New York City - Before sourcing, review the ideal portfolio list curated by Porter's. Submitted candidates must have a portfolio on par with those in the list, portfolios should not look vibe-coded, must show unique design sensibility, and clean, intentional execution. ## Green Flags - Portfolio demonstrates genuine taste and craft, not just technical execution, this is the primary filter - Background at Vercel, Linear, or a developer tooling company with strong design engineering culture - Excited about implementing their own designs using AI tools without waiting on engineering - Can name a collaborator who was better than them, signals low ego and team orientation - Has shipped micro-interactions and polished product experiences to real users in production - Genuine curiosity about dev tooling and cloud infrastructure, not just interested in the design problem ## Red Flags - No portfolio or weak portfolio, non-starter - Expects to hand off Figma files without being involved in implementation - Not excited about using AI to accelerate design output - Cannot name a collaborator who impressed them, usually signals ego and poor teamwork - Under 5 years of experience - Team's current frontend engineer needs to review every single microinteraction pr they put together ## Role Details Salary$200,000–$280,000EquityCompetitive / meaningful equityOn-site policyFully in-person, 5 days/weekVisa sponsorshipNone AvailableEmployment typeFull-timeLocationNew York City, NY Benefits & Perks: Meaningful equity · 30 days PTO · 30 days remote per year · Relocation covered · On-site work trial paid ## Screening Questions - None provided on the role page. ## Interview Process Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Intro with Justin — First conversation with the Co-Founder / Design Lead. Stage 3 — Second Round Stage 4 — Two-day on-site Stage 5 — Intro with Justin — Second touch with Justin (as listed on the page). Stage 6 — Offer Extended Stage 7 — Candidate Hired — Candidate accepts and starts. ## Ideal Companies & Backgrounds No dedicated Ideal Companies section on the role page. Per Green Flags, target Vercel, Linear, and developer-tooling companies with a strong design-engineering culture. ## Ideal Candidate Profiles — DO NOT CONTACT Porter's curated portfolio benchmark. Do not source or contact these people — use only as the bar that submitted portfolios must match (see Requirement 6). - Gustavo Rodrigues - Kevin C - Pauline Wee - Roby Saavedra - Preet Suthar (No LinkedIn URLs provided on the role page.)