Founding Design Engineer, GovWell
$190-210k
+ Equity / stock options
Modern software for local government
Open for applications
Modern software for local government
21-100 employees
Open for applications
$190-210k
+ Equity / stock options
21-100 employees
Company mission
To build modern software products to help government serve communities better.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years building complex SaaS frontend systems in React and TypeScript
- Experience designing, scaling, or maintaining a shared design system
- Strong frontend systems thinker who builds primitives and reusable patterns rather than one-off pages
- Deep familiarity with accessibility standards, inclusive design, and performance optimization
- Comfortable translating design intent into durable technical abstractions
- Experience collaborating closely with product designers in fast-moving environments
- Able to guide frontend direction without becoming a bottleneck
- Startup-oriented operator who moves quickly while preserving quality
- Aligned with GovWell’s core values
What the job involves
- GovWell is hiring a Founding Design Engineer to own the frontend foundations that define the quality, accessibility, and coherence of our product
- This role sits at the intersection of design and engineering
- You will translate interaction patterns into durable, reusable systems that make it easy for teams to ship consistent, high-quality user experiences
- You will also raise the bar on accessibility, performance, and frontend architecture across the platform
- Because GovWell powers government services used by people with diverse backgrounds and levels of digital fluency, accessibility is not a checkbox for us; it’s central to delivering equitable public services
- You will help ensure our product is inclusive, interpretable, and usable for everyone it touches
- Your work will ensure GovWell feels fast, intuitive, and unified as the product expands
- This is a hands-on, high-ownership role based in our NYC hybrid environment (3+ days per week in office)
- You'll own frontend architecture foundations, including shared component systems, state patterns, and UI primitives
- Translate system-level design direction into composable, reusable React components
- Establish and enforce accessibility standards across the platform, including WCAG compliance and inclusive interaction patterns
- Improve performance across high-volume operational workflows
- Design and implement safe, interpretable human-in-the-loop interaction primitives for AI-powered features
- Embed early with product pods to shape implementation strategy and maintain frontend consistency
- Continuously refactor and consolidate existing surfaces to reduce entropy and improve usability over time
Our take
Govwell creates software for planning and zoning within local governments, simplifying processes and modernising citizen services. With the intention of improving transparency, it is helping all sizes of government serve its communities better.
What stands out about GovWell’s workflow and automation technology is the fact that its platform is customisable. Government sectors, councils and organisations operate their tech in varying ways, and so GovWell serves these varying needs by allowing flexibility of use within its platform. This is facilitated by no-code tools to improve adaptability.
Ultimately, the platform helps local governments complete tasks in a fraction of the time. It’s a breath of fresh air in the sector, which isn’t known for its innovations, and GovWell has been smart to target this niche. It has seen good funding to support team expansion, enhanced product development and accelerated growth.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Aug 2024
$4.5m
SEED
Apr 2023
$1m
SEED
Total funding: $5.5m
Company benefits
- Equity ownership
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance, with up to 100% of premiums covered for you and your partner
- 401(k) savings plan
- Unlimited time off
- Hybrid work environment
- A fully stocked kitchen, and drinks on hand
- Team events and gatherings sponsored by us
Company HQ
Rose Hill, New York, NY
Leadership
Ben Cohen
(CTO & Co-founder)Previously Founder of Cohen Realty & Construction. Was also a Software Engineer at UiPath, Amazon and Uber.
Troy LeCaire
(CEO & Co-founder)Previously Chief of Staff for the CEO of RippleMatch. Was a Campaign Intern for Senator Russ Feingold, Legislative Intern for Senator Tammy Baldwin and Legal Intern at Froelich Law Offices.
Salary benchmarks
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