Design Engineer - React - ai H/F

collectivite

Important information

Contract type: Permanent contract

Salary: Salary according to profile

Location: Paris, France

Starting date:

2 to 4 weeks

Work mode: Hybrid, Remote

Published on: 8 July 2026

What they need

Context

Aqqi is building an AI-powered platform to transform the slow, opaque, and one-sided process of buying real estate. In France, buyers make the largest purchase of their lives alone: listings are scattered, key information is hidden, and every professional at the table works for the seller. Aqqi, Direct Layer's first product, gives buyers a professional of their own - a dedicated Buyer Agent augmented by conversational search, agentic workflows, and intelligent document analysis powered by LLMs and real-time matching - compressing a months-long purchase journey into weeks, from first brief to the notary's office.
Starting with residential real estate in France, Direct Layer is expanding across the EU and UK, with the ambition to cover all forms of intermediated commerce.
Founded by Alexandre Ducoeur Martins (CEO, Studapart exit 2024), Julie de la Porte des Vaux (ex-GM Studapart), and Alexandre Collin (CPO, #3 at Algolia), the company closed its pre-seed round in 20 days. Based in Paris, Aqqi is building a multinational team with European ambitions.

Missions

• Partner with founders to shape the problem space through product discovery and UX, leading user research, mapping flows, and designing data-rich, mobile-first surfaces (property management, lead pipelines, search).

• Build and own the design system end-to-end, including tokens, patterns, Storybook, and frontend integration based on shadcn, ensuring every component is designed mobile-first.

• Convert Figma concepts into working React/shadcn prototypes and ship production code collaboratively with full-stack engineers.

• Design interactive AI experiences such as conversational interfaces, streaming responses, and orchestration views for automated workflows, primarily optimized for mobile devices.

• Define the design vision alongside the CPO/CTO, shaping best-in-class product experiences from conversational search to generative UIs.

Tools & Environment

• Design: Figma, Storybook, design tokens

• Frontend: React/Vite, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui

• Backend (context): NestJS, PostgreSQL (Supabase)

• AI tooling: Cursor, Claude Code, Figma Make

Working Conditions

• Location: Paris, France (Hybrid, 3 days in office at Station F)

• Salary: depending on seniority + meaningful equity as a Founding Designer

• Equipment: MacBook Pro, Figma, Cursor, Claude Code, learning budget

• Contract details and start date: Not specified

Additional Information

• The role is a founding position combining product design and frontend development (Design Engineer), working closely with the CPO/CTO and full-stack AI engineers.

• The company emphasizes high velocity and end-to-end ownership, with a bias for shipping impactful work quickly.

• The interview process includes a portfolio deep dive, founder vision call, practical design and coding challenge, and an on-site meeting at Station F.

Profile wanted

1. Strong product sense: You fall in love with the problem, understand business goals, ground decisions in data, and spar with founders on what to build next.
2. Product design craft (3+ years): Sharp aesthetic sense meets methodological rigor including leading research, mapping flows, crafting high-fidelity UI, and building advanced prototypes.
3. Design system ownership: Experience building or scaling a design system and treating the component library as a product with polish and accessibility as non-negotiable.
4. Data-rich surfaces & flows: Ability to design and build complex tables, filters, and multi-step workflows at a competitive level.
5. Frontend development: Solid skills in React and TypeScript, turning Figma work into interactive prototypes (shadcn/ui + Tailwind) and shipping production components.
6. End-to-end ownership: Proactive in seeing what needs to happen and going after it.
7. High velocity: Bias for shipping quickly, valuing 80% done today over 100% next week.
8. Nice-to-have: Experience with mobile-first consumer-grade or B2B2C apps, generative UI and AI-first interfaces, deep frontend comfort including state management and performance optimization, motion and micro-interactions, and domain experience in real estate, proptech, or complex B2B SaaS.