Junior Design Engineer

About the role

Ashby is looking for a Junior Design Engineer in Canada who can contribute equally to product design and frontend implementation. This is not a pure frontend role with a design label, and it is not a prototyping-only design role. The expectation is to bring strong visual judgment and solid engineering ability together to create thoughtful, polished product experiences.

The position sits within a dedicated Design Engineering function that works closely with the co-founder and VP of Engineering. The team has existed for more than five years and is scaling from five people to more than ten over the coming year.

What you will work on

• Tackle difficult interface and interaction problems across the product.
• Strengthen and expand the internal design system so other teams can build more consistent experiences.
• Advise product engineers on custom design work when specialized support is needed.
• Translate wireframes and ideas into refined user interfaces that balance usability, flexibility, and technical feasibility.
• Use customer conversations and feedback to inform redesigns and product improvements.

Examples of the work

• Reworked the mobile web application by speaking with frequent users, creating wireframes for new flows, applying the design system, and shipping a polished final interface.
• Developed flexible, composable design system components that help engineers create attractive and consistent setup wizards across the product.
• Improved information hierarchy and scannability in a candidate assessment view so recruiters can quickly understand details and spot unusual cases.

Why this role is different

Ashby is built at meaningful scale, with work that reaches more than 100,000 weekly active users and millions of candidates each week. The product is used by well-known customers such as Notion, Linear, Shopify, and Snowflake, and design decisions can be tested quickly with internal recruiting teams and hiring managers.

The company values fast shipping, iterative improvement, and strong product taste. The UI must be approachable for first-time users while still allowing advanced customization and automation for experienced users.

Who this role is not for

• People who want to work only on design systems.
• People who prefer long research cycles before building anything.
• People who need a product to feel perfect before it is released.
• People who do not have strong visual design taste and execution.
• People who rely on heavy process or formal project management to move work forward.
• People who only want highly glamorous assignments, since customer issues and investigations are shared across the team.

Leveling guidance

Applicants are encouraged to apply at the level that best matches their background. The Junior Design Engineer level is intended for candidates with no more than 2 years of industry experience as either a designer or engineer. Strong personal or professional projects that show visual taste and growing ability in both UI/UX and engineering are expected.

Other levels exist as well: Design Engineer is aimed at people with 2+ years of continuous experience, and Staff Design Engineer is for those who have already made major professional contributions to a design system and shipped iterated features for large audiences.

What Ashby is building

The company was founded to improve talent acquisition software, which often slowed recruiting teams down instead of helping them move faster. Ashby aims to provide software that is intelligent, powerful, and capable of automating or simplifying complex recruiting work such as interview scheduling, interviewer coordination, and workflow management.

Engineering culture

The engineering organization is built around a small, high-talent team that values strong ownership, deliberate communication, and minimal process. Engineers generally run their own projects end-to-end, including research, specs, wireframes, and implementation, while product managers and designers handle strategy and problem framing.

Communication is intentional, focus time is protected, and collaboration is supported through written proposals, prototypes, and research. The team also meets in person at least twice per year, once as a department and once as a company, and employees receive a small budget to meet colleagues in their city or region.

Leverage and tooling

The company emphasizes leverage over headcount by investing in fast developer tooling, reusable building blocks, and AI-assisted workflows. Engineers benefit from a quick CI/CD pipeline, frequent deployments, and tools that support debugging, automation, code generation, and review.

Diversity and inclusion

Ashby states that it is intentionally building a more diverse engineering team and has taken steps such as sourcing diverse candidates, offering generous paid family leave, and avoiding leetcode-style interviews.

Interview process

The hiring process is designed to be collaborative and practical. Candidates can expect to walk through previous work, pair program, design collaboratively, and discuss technical and product decisions. No leetcode or whiteboard exercises are used.

• Selected applicants are asked to share a video walkthrough of a product or feature they have designed.
• Recruiter introduction call lasting 30 minutes.
• A 30-minute live discussion of past work with the co-founder and VP of Engineering.
• A short screen-share interview focused on relevant examples and design thinking.

Additional information

The company notes that it internally uses leveling rather than these public titles.

Compensation details were not included in the source material.

Number of openings was not specified.

Start date and application deadline were not specified.

Because the role is a full-time job, internship duration does not apply.

The job is based in Canada and is onsite.