Design Engineer (React, TS, Figma) - FT - Europe/LATAM

About the Company

Pendulum is an immersive language-learning company. Language is the instrument of culture. When we learn a new language, we gain a broader perspective on the world. However, traditional language learning methods—memorizing vocabulary, drilling conjugations, or playing daily games—fail to teach us how to truly speak.

At Pendulum, we believe in immersion. We learn best by hearing, seeing, and using language as a tool for connection. By leveraging cutting-edge conversational voice AI and autonomous LLM agents, Pendulum creates immersive, personalized, and evolving digital worlds for language learning. Instead of static grammar exercises or generic dialogues, learners engage in dynamic, open-ended scenarios that adapt to their interests, personality, and fluency level—empowering them to shape their own journey through language.

About the Role

As Pendulum’s first Design Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in defining how our product looks, feels, and functions. You will collaborate closely with our Founding Designer and the broader team to bridge the gap between user needs and cutting-edge AI capabilities, designing intuitive and visually stunning interfaces that unlock new paradigms of human-computer interaction.

What You’ll Do

• Own the design engineering function—build from scratch immersive interfaces that seamlessly integrate conversational voice AI and visual AI for language learning.
• Create user-friendly, engaging experiences that bring joy and companionship to learners through thoughtfully crafted design and interaction.
• Collaborate with the Founding Designer and team to define and implement new paradigms in conversational AI, personalized cultural exploration, and interactive storytelling.
• Ensure scalability, reliability, and performance across our frontend stack, writing clean, maintainable, and efficient code that supports a growing user base.

Required Skills

• 5+ years of professional experience developing user-facing products with TypeScript & React as a frontend or full-stack engineer.
• Expertise in Figma, including components, variables, and prototyping.
• Strong software engineering skills, with the ability to pragmatically balance rapid iteration with scalable architecture.
• A passion for crafting exceptional products and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI-driven experiences.
• Curiosity, ambition, and kindness, with a willingness to challenge assumptions and embrace new ideas.

Nice to Have Skills

• Experience building AI-native user interfaces, whether professionally or in personal side projects. Some AI-native products we admire:
• Claude Artifacts
• Visual Electric
• Granola
• NotebookLM
• Familiarity with computing pioneers like Douglas Engelbart, Susan Kare, Alan Kay, and Ted Nelson—and an appreciation for their influence on human-computer interaction.

Our Tech Stack

• Frontend: TypeScript, React, Next.js (deployed on Vercel)
• Backend: Python, FastAPI, WebRTC (Pipecat), LLMs & TTS (OpenAI, Anthropic, 11labs, etc.), deployed on Modal