# Design Engineer \(UI/UX\) - Company: [Kinship]() - Location: London - Team: Product & Design - Employment type: Full Time - Posted: June 12, 2025 ## Job description # Take complex, data-dense professional software and make it feel effortless β€” and treat documenting it in Figma as part of the craft, not an afterthought. ## Hey there β€” we’re Kinship πŸ‘‹ We make software for architects and engineering teams. The work they do is genuinely complex β€” huge libraries of project content, mountains of data, fiddly technical detail β€” and most of the tools in their world are clunky and joyless. Ours aren't: our whole reason for existing is to take that complexity and make it feel clean, fast, and a pleasure to use. That's the design challenge, and it's a great one. We're looking for a product designer who lives and breathes UI β€” someone who turns dense, complicated workflows into interfaces that feel clean, obvious, and quietly delightful. This isn't about making pretty pictures; it's about understanding how people actually work, shaping the right solution, and documenting it with real care. You don't need to know a thing about architecture or engineering to start β€” we'll bring you up to speed on what matters; what counts is that you're brilliant at making complex software feel simple. And here's the best part: we already have a great designer (no joke). So you won't be a lone designer holding everything together β€” you'd be joining to help us *grow* the design team, raise the bar together, and shape how design works at Kinship as we scale. If you're properly fluent in Figma β€” the kind of person who treats a well-built component library and a clean handoff as a craft in itself β€” you'll feel right at home. ## **In this role, you will:** * Own the design of features end to end β€” from the problem and the flows through to pixel-perfect, developer-ready UI. * Turn complex, data-heavy workflows into interfaces that feel simple, fast, and genuinely helpful. * Build and evolve our design system in Figma β€” components, variants, tokens, and patterns that keep the product consistent as it grows. * Document your work properly β€” states, edge cases, and interactions all spelled out β€” so building it is the easy part. * Prototype interactions to pressure-test motion and behaviour before anyone writes code. * Work hand in hand with our engineers, and help grow and shape the design team as we scale. ## **What we're looking for** You don't need to tick every box, but here's what would help you succeed. ### Must-Haves * **5+ years designing software products** β€” real applications with structured data and rich interactions β€” not just websites or marketing pages β€” with a portfolio that shows shipped work, systems thinking, and obsessive attention to detail. * **Mastery of Figma as both a design** ***and*** **a documentation tool.** Components, variants, auto-layout, variables/tokens, named states β€” and handoff that's clean, complete, and easy to build from. (If your home is Sketch instead, that's welcome too β€” it's the next best thing.) * **Figma files you can walk us through.** We care as much about *how you document and hand off* as we do about the final screens β€” so expect to show us the inside of a file, not just the pretty frames. * A deep eye for the details that make an interface *just work*: typography, spacing, hierarchy, and the unglamorous states β€” empty, loading, error, edge cases. * Experience collaborating closely with engineers in a product team β€” clear communication, thoughtful handoff, and the patience to iterate until it's right. ### Nice-to-Haves (these won't gate you) * Comfort with **Framer** (or similar) for higher-fidelity interaction prototypes β€” to *show how something should move*, not to hand off. * Comfort reading and tweaking **HTML & CSS** β€” enough to understand how your designs become real interfaces, and to nudge things in the browser when it helps. You absolutely don't need to be a coder, and we won't screen anyone out for not being one. But if you're a designer who genuinely loves dipping into code, you'll have a brilliant time here. * Experience building or owning a **design system**. ## **How we think about design and handoff** A mockup that *looks* right isn't a finished design. For us, a design is done when an engineer can build it without guessing β€” every state, every breakpoint, every edge case accounted for. That's why Figma is home base: it's the best tool we know for *documenting* design, and we lean on it properly β€” components, variants, auto-layout, variables, named states. (Sketch is the next best thing, if that's your world.) Tools like Framer are brilliant for what they're brilliant at β€” pressure-testing an interaction or showing how something should move β€” but a prototype is for exploring, not for handing off to the dev team. We're looking for someone who treats documentation as part of the craft, not a chore tacked on at the end. Get that right and everything downstream β€” build quality, speed, the feel of the final product β€” gets better. ## **You’re probably someone who:** * Is happiest turning messy complexity into something that feels obvious. * Sweats the details β€” states, spacing, edge cases β€” because you know they *are* the product. * Likes being in the room where product decisions get made. * Enjoys shipping quickly and often, in person, with a small, motivated team. * Values clarity and simplicity over flashy gimmicks. * Takes real pride in the craft, and in handing work over the way you'd want it handed to you. ## **What We Offer** * Competitive salary. * A beautiful, plant-filled office in central London (by Southwark tube station) and good coffee (obviously). * Office-first, with trust-based flexibility. * A company that believes in work-life balance β€” we work hard, but go home on time. * A no-BS team of people who love building great software together β€” with real autonomy and influence over the product and our culture. ## Apply [Apply on Kinship]() Canonical job page: