Design Engineering Intern

Role SummaryAITHER is a product design partner previously headquartered in Tokyo and now based in New York. We’ve partnered with startups of all sizes across consumer products, healthcare, fashion, transportation, financial services, and emerging technology.Operating at the crossroads of business, design, data, and technology, we specialize in creating intelligent, user-centric digital products for a wide range of partners.AITHER is looking for a Design Engineer Intern to join our team. This role sits between product design and front-end engineering, with a focus on turning ideas, interfaces, and product requirements into functional prototypes, reusable UI components, and polished digital experiences.Our ideal candidate has strong visual taste, understands interface hierarchy, cares deeply about product clarity, and has hands-on experience using AI coding and design tools to move quickly from concept to prototype. Experience with tools such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Figma MCP, Figma Make, v0, ChatGPT, Claude, and similar AI-assisted development tools is required.You should be comfortable working across product requirements, component systems, responsive layouts, front-end code, and AI-assisted workflows. You do not need to be a senior engineer, but you should be technically curious, fast-moving, detail-oriented, and excited to use AI tools as part of your daily product development process.You will join a fast-moving team of product designers, UI/UX designers, graphic designers, and engineers working together to deliver high-value digital products for our clients.Our CultureBe present and engaged: Work in real time with our design and product team.Communicate proactively: Share progress, blockers, technical questions, and design rationale openly; respond same business day.Bridge design and engineering: Care deeply about how an experience looks, feels, behaves, and gets built.Design with judgment: Strong output is not just about generating options. It requires taste, curation, critique, and clear reasoning.Manage multiple ventures: Balance work across 2–3 active products depending on stage and priority.Embrace iteration: Feedback is corrective, not punitive; prototype, test, refine, and move forward quickly.Work independently: Comfortable taking ownership, making informed design and implementation decisions, and operating in ambiguity.Sprint cycles: Occasional evening and weekend work may happen during critical launch phases, balanced with recovery time.What We’re Looking ForAITHER is looking for a Design Engineer Intern to work closely with our team and gain hands-on experience building real product experiences.This is a 3-month internship at AITHER, with potential for extension. You will work across product design, design systems, front-end prototyping, AI-assisted development workflows, and client-facing digital products.This role requires hands-on experience with AI coding and prototyping tools, including tools such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Figma MCP, Figma Make, v0, ChatGPT, Claude, or similar platforms. You should be comfortable using these tools to generate code, refine components, debug issues, explore implementation options, and move quickly from product concept to working prototype.We are especially interested in candidates who can demonstrate strong information hierarchy, product clarity, layout, spacing, typography, interaction detail, responsiveness, and practical design judgment. You should be able to generate multiple design directions, evaluate them critically, explain your tradeoffs, and identify which solution is strongest for the user and product context.You will get heavy exposure to the latest AI-native design and development processes, including agentic coding workflows, design-to-code systems, rapid prototyping methods, and HTML-based product presentations.You will receive a $2,500 monthly stipend throughout the length of the internship.This role is ideal for someone who loves both the craft of interface design and the logic of building things. You should be excited by the idea of using AI not as a shortcut, but as a creative and technical collaborator in the product development process.ResponsibilitiesCollaborate with product designers, graphic designers, engineers, and client teams to develop functional, innovative design solutions.Translate product requirements into interactive prototypes, front-end components, implementation-ready specs, and browser-viewable design presentations.Use AI coding tools such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Figma MCP, Figma Make, v0, ChatGPT, Claude, and similar tools to accelerate prototyping, component creation, design-to-code workflows, debugging, and iteration.Create wireframes, prototypes, high-fidelity interfaces, coded proofs of concept, and responsive layouts for digital products.Generate and compare multiple design directions, then curate the strongest option based on hierarchy, usability, product clarity, feasibility, and visual quality.Support the development and maintenance of design systems, reusable components, UI patterns, naming conventions, grid systems, color palettes, typography rules, and interaction standards.Help build and refine responsive web interfaces with attention to visual polish, interaction details, accessibility, and performance.Create HTML-based presentations or prototypes that clearly communicate design options, reasoning, tradeoffs, and recommendations.Partner with engineers to ensure design intent is preserved during implementation.Use AI tools responsibly to explore multiple implementation directions while maintaining quality, consistency, and design judgment.Participate in design reviews and present your work, prototypes, rationale, and critiques to team members and stakeholders.Evaluate weaker design options with a critical eye, calling out issues such as unclear hierarchy, poor spacing, visual noise, weak responsiveness, or mismatch with the product context.Help ensure designs are aligned with brand standards, product goals, user needs, and technical feasibility.Assist with QA by reviewing implemented interfaces for spacing, typography, responsive behavior, interaction states, and visual consistency.Contribute to usability testing protocols and assist with user testing sessions.Assist in the research and analysis of user feedback, product patterns, and market trends to support design decisions.Support graphic design, motion, animation, and microinteraction exploration when needed.Join and shadow client meetings to understand product requirements, feedback cycles, and delivery expectations.QualificationsCurrently pursuing or recently completed a degree in Product Design, HCI, UX/UI, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Design Technology, or a related field. This is preferred but not required.Required: hands-on experience using AI coding tools such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Figma MCP, Figma Make, v0, ChatGPT, Claude, or similar AI-assisted development tools.Familiarity with front-end development fundamentals such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Next.js, Tailwind, or component-based UI development.Comfortable using AI tools to generate, review, debug, and refine front-end code.Strong visual design skills, including typography, spacing, layout, hierarchy, color, and interaction design.Strong product judgment and the ability to make complex information feel clear, useful, and immediately understandable.Comfortable working with design systems, reusable components, variants, responsive layouts, and interaction states.A strong portfolio, GitHub, personal website, prototype collection, HTML presentation, or case studies showing strong design taste, systems thinking, technical curiosity, and AI-assisted product-building ability.Ability to communicate design decisions, tradeoffs, and rationale clearly.Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment.Excellent attention to detail and ability to spot inconsistencies across design and implementation.Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate with designers, engineers, product managers, clients, and stakeholders.Problem-solving skills and the ability to adapt quickly to feedback.Comfort operating in ambiguity and learning new tools quickly.Bonus: experience with animation, motion design, 3D, WebGL, Spline, Rive, Lottie, or creative coding.Interview ProcessCandidates who pass the initial behavioral interview round will receive a design engineering challenge.The challenge is designed to evaluate your ability to use AI-assisted design and coding tools to generate multiple product interface directions, organize complex information clearly, and present your work in a browser-viewable HTML file.We are evaluating design taste, curation judgment, critical eye, hierarchy, effective use of AI design tools, clear communication, attention to interaction details, responsiveness, and design engineering ability.BenefitsFlexible scheduleProfessional development assistanceHands-on exposure to real client productsMentorship from designers and engineersExperience with AI-native design and development workflowsOpportunity for internship extension based on performance and team needsPathway to a full-time Design Engineer role if it is a strong fit for both the candidate and AITHER