Job Description
We're building the company which will de-risk the largest infrastructure build-out in history.
When people finance GPU clusters, the datacenters housing them, and the infrastructure powering them, they need "offtake" - meaning someone has signed a contract to lease the cluster for a period of time before its even built.
Financing a GPU cluster is inherently risky, since margins are thin and volumes are huge. Lenders don't want to take on the risk that cluster developers can't repay their loan, and cluster developers really don't want to risk not selling their cluster. As a result, risk is offloaded to the customer using fixed-price long-term contracts.
If you don't mitigate this customer risk, there's a bubble. This isn't SaaS anymore - application layer companies sign multi-year contracts for computer and inference, but sell to customers on monthly subscriptions. If you mess up a purchase, it's game over: a minor shift in your revenue growth rate might mean the difference between profit or bankruptcy. But what if companies could exit their contract by selling it back to the market?
Otherwise, as AI scales, compute only becomes available to folks who can effectively take on that risk. A 2-person startup in a San Francisco Victorian can't realistically sign a 5-year take or pay contract on $100m supercomputers. But they may be able to buy the month of liquidity that someone else sold back.
So that's what we make: a liquid market for GPU offtake.
About The Role
We're looking to hire an engineer to build extremely high-fidelity, high-taste interfaces. Maybe you were a designer in a past life, but now write code. You'll raise the bar for visual and interaction quality across our product surfaces, working closely with engineering, product, and design partners. We care about people who can operate autonomously: understanding the business context well enough to make good tradeoffs without heavy direction, and growing into broader product ownership over time.
What You Will Do
Design and build the high-fidelity, polished interfaces in our product
Raise the bar for frontend craft, interaction design, motion, visual detail, performance under real usage
Partner closely with product and engineering to turn rough ideas into shippable, delightful experiences
Make sound architectural decisions for frontend systems that scale with the product
Mentor other engineers on design sensibility and frontend craft
Grow into broader product ownership, understanding customer needs, business context, and shipping end-to-end
Who You Are
You have strong design instincts, but prefer to build rather than only spec
You have strong opinions about product quality and can point to specific things you'd fix in products you use every day
You've shipped genuinely complex frontend components — whether the complexity was technical (performance, real-time data, animation) or experiential (making something hard feel simple)
You're energized by both the craft of building and by understanding why something matters to the business and its customers
Deep expertise in a modern JS framework: React, Vue, Svelte, or SolidJS
A track record of shipping interfaces with real visual and interaction craft — not just functional, but genuinely good
Staff+ level ability to operate autonomously and make good judgment calls with limited direction
Nice To Have
Experience shipping products end-to-end to external customers, and understanding how that work mapped to business goals
Startup or early-stage experience, where you had to wear a product-thinking hat as well as an engineering one
Experience in developer tools, infrastructure, or technically dense product spaces
Benefits
Generous equity grant
Team members are offered a competitive salary along with equity in the company
Visa Sponsorships
Yes, we sponsor visas and work permits
Retirement matching
We match 401(k) plans up to 4%
Medical, dental & vision
We offer competitive medical, dental, vision insurance for employees and dependents and cover 100% of premiums
Time off
We offer unlimited paid time off as well as 10+ observed holidays
Parental leave
We offer biological, adoptive, and foster parents paid time off to spend quality time with family
Daily lunch
We cover lunch daily for employees
Unlimited office book budget
You can buy as many books for the office as you want
The San Francisco Compute Company is committed to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination and harassment.
We make employment decisions based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, belief, national origin, social or ethical origin, age, physical, mental, or sensory disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, civil union or domestic partnership status, past or present military service, HIV status, family medical history or genetic information, family or parental status including pregnancy, or any other status protected by law.
We welcome the opportunity to consider qualified applicants with prior arrest or conviction records. Our commitment to diversity includes hiring talented individuals regardless of their criminal history, in accordance with local, state, and federal laws, including San Francisco’s Fair Chance Ordinance and California’s ban-the-box laws.
Required Skills
Categories
Frequently asked questions
Is the Staff Design Engineer position at SF Compute remote?
The Staff Design Engineer role at SF Compute is an on-site or hybrid position.
What type of employment is the Staff Design Engineer role?
SF Compute is hiring for a full-time Staff Design Engineer position.
What skills are needed for the Staff Design Engineer job at SF Compute?
Key skills for this role include React, GPU.
How do I apply for the Staff Design Engineer position at SF Compute?
You can apply for the Staff Design Engineer role directly through SF Compute's official application link provided on this page.