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Senior Design Engineer Jobs in Berkeley, CA (NOW HIRING)

Front

Senior Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$205K - $238K/yr

We're looking for a Senior Design Engineer to help close the gap between how Front is designed and how Front is built. Front has a mature, complex product surface with more than a decade of UI ...

Socket.dev

Senior Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$140 - $200/hr

We're looking for a Senior Design Engineer to help close the gap between how Front is designed and how Front is built. Front has a mature, complex product surface with more than a decade of UI ...

New

Doist

Senior Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$150 - $230/hr

We're looking for a Senior Design Engineer to help close the gap between how Front is designed and how Front is built. Front has a mature, complex product surface with more than a decade of UI ...

JUUL Labs, Inc.

Senior Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$165 - $227/hr

The Sr. Design Engineer will be joining an incredibly talented group of mechanical engineers on our Product Design team tasked with bringing new products and major product improvements to market for ...

Juul Labs

Senior Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

The Sr. Design Engineer will be joining an incredibly talented group of mechanical engineers on our Product Design team tasked with bringing new products and major product improvements to market for ...

Juul Labs

Senior Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA

The Sr. Design Engineer will be joining an incredibly talented group of mechanical engineers on our Product Design team tasked with bringing new products and major product improvements to market for ...

GitHub, Inc.

Senior Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

Design Engineers live at the intersection of design, engineering, and product strategy, combining strong technical depth, sharp design sensibility, and the ability to move ideas into production ...

Jobtailor

Senior Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$120 - $170/hr

Evolve design system for efficiency and quality * Champion simplicity for user experience Requirements * Strong front-end skills (React, TypeScript, CSS, animation) * Comfortable in Figma and a code ...

transpak

Packaging Design Engineer I

San Jose, CA · On-site

$159K/yr

Participate in onsite meetings to customer sites with senior design engineers to understand their design requirements. * Create new or update existing packaging specifications and designs, including ...

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Showing results 1-20

All JobsDesign Engineer JobsSenior Design Engineer JobsSenior Design Engineer Jobs in Berkeley, CA

Senior Design Engineer information

See Berkeley, CA salary details

$77.1K

$148.7K

$234.5K

How much do senior design engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Aug 10, 2026, the average yearly pay for senior design engineer in Berkeley, CA is $148,727.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $116,300.00 and $169,600.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

How much do senior design engineers earn?

Senior design engineers typically earn between $80,000 and $130,000 annually, depending on experience, industry, and location. They often have specialized skills in CAD software and engineering principles, which can influence salary levels.

How does a senior design engineer typically collaborate with cross-functional teams during a product development cycle?

Senior Design Engineers frequently work alongside professionals from manufacturing, quality assurance, project management, and marketing to ensure the successful development and launch of products. They lead design reviews, gather input from other departments, and address technical challenges collaboratively. This role requires strong communication skills and the ability to balance design intent with practical constraints such as cost, manufacturability, and regulatory requirements. Regular meetings and iterative feedback loops are a standard part of the process, making teamwork and adaptability essential for success.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a senior design engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Senior Design Engineer, you need a strong background in engineering principles, advanced problem-solving abilities, and a relevant bachelor's or master's degree in engineering. Proficiency with CAD software, simulation tools, and familiarity with industry standards or certifications such as PE (Professional Engineer) are typically required. Leadership, effective communication, and project management skills set top performers apart in this role. These competencies ensure the delivery of innovative, reliable designs while leading teams and projects to successful outcomes.

What is the difference between Senior Design Engineer vs Mechanical Design Engineer?

AspectSenior Design EngineerMechanical Design Engineer
Required CredentialsBachelor's degree in engineering, experience in design, possibly professional engineering licenseBachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or related field, design experience
Work EnvironmentDesign teams, project management, cross-disciplinary collaborationDesign and development of mechanical components, CAD work, prototype testing
Employer & Industry UsageEngineering firms, manufacturing, aerospace, automotiveManufacturing, product design, machinery development

The main difference is that a Senior Design Engineer typically has more experience, leadership responsibilities, and may oversee projects, while a Mechanical Design Engineer focuses on creating and testing mechanical components. Both roles require similar technical skills and work in related environments, but the senior position involves more oversight and strategic input.

What does a senior design engineer do?

A Senior Design Engineer is responsible for leading the design and development of products, systems, or components, often within engineering or manufacturing industries. They create detailed technical drawings and specifications, oversee project timelines, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure designs meet safety, quality, and efficiency standards. Additionally, they mentor junior engineers, troubleshoot design challenges, and may interact with clients or stakeholders to clarify requirements and present solutions. Their role combines technical expertise, project management, and leadership skills.
What are the most commonly searched types of Design Engineer jobs in Berkeley, CA? The most popular types of Design Engineer jobs in Berkeley, CA are:
What job categories do people searching Senior Design Engineer jobs in Berkeley, CA look for? The top searched job categories for Senior Design Engineer jobs in Berkeley, CA are:
What cities near Berkeley, CA are hiring for Senior Design Engineer jobs? Cities near Berkeley, CA with the most Senior Design Engineer job openings:
Senior Design Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Senior Design Engineer job openings in Berkeley, CA as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% Internship, 87% Full Time, 7% Part Time, and 5% Contract. Highlights an 85% Physical, 5% Hybrid, and 10% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $148,727 per year, or $71.5 per hour.

Senior Design Engineer

Front

San Francisco, CA • On-site

$205K - $238K/yr

Full-time

Medical

Posted 7 days ago

Job description

Front is the customer operations platform built for B2B complexity, keeping every team, tool, and customer conversation in sync so companies can scale without losing connection. Others handle simple interactions. Front handles the coordination and context behind complex B2B customer relationships. Over 9,000 companies, including Uber Freight, Navan, and Stripe, rely on Front because it's the only one that can run the operational layer that makes customer-facing work actually succeed.
Backed by Sequoia Capital and Salesforce Ventures, Front has raised $204M from leading venture capital firms and independent investors including top executives at Atlassian, Okta, Qualtrics, Zoom, and PagerDuty. Front has received numerous Great Place to Work accolades, including Built In's 100 Best Midsize Places to Work in SF 2025, Top Places to Work by USA Today 2025, Y Combinator's list of Top Companies in 2023, #4 on Fortune's Best Workplaces in the Bay Area™ ,Inc. Magazine's 2022 Best Workplaces list, and Forbes Best Startup Employers 2022 List.
AI is transforming customer service at a pace the industry hasn't seen before. Front is at the leading edge of that shift, with more than 9,000 companies worldwide, including CultureAmp, Hootsuite, and Y Combinator, already running their support operations on it.
We're looking for a Senior Design Engineer to help close the gap between how Front is designed and how Front is built. Front has a mature, complex product surface with more than a decade of UI investment, a rich Figma library, and a large production codebase. This role is for someone who is equally comfortable in Figma and in frontend code, and who wants to turn design systems from static documentation into living, production-quality systems that help product teams move faster.
You'll own the connective tissue between Design and Engineering: building reusable components, shaping design-system architecture, improving the fidelity between Figma and production, and creating the tooling, patterns, and practices that make high-quality UI easier to ship. You won't just document the system - you'll build it, ship it, evolve it, and help teams adopt it.
This is a hands-on senior IC role with high leverage across Product, Design, and Engineering. The right person brings strong frontend engineering judgment, excellent UI craft, deep design-systems experience, and the ability to influence teams without becoming a bottleneck.
What will you be doing?
  • Own and evolve Front's design system across Figma, Storybook, and production code, helping create a clearer source of truth between design and engineering.
  • Build, refactor, and maintain reusable, accessible, well-documented UI components that product teams can confidently use across Front's core surfaces.
  • Identify and reduce design/code drift across our existing component libraries, legacy UI patterns, and evolving Figma system.
  • Establish patterns, conventions, and guardrails that improve consistency, accessibility, maintainability, and developer experience.
  • Prototype new interaction patterns and reference implementations in code to help teams align quickly and de-risk complex product decisions.
  • Partner closely with Product Designers, Product Managers, and Engineers to define what "great" looks like for complex workflows, edge cases, and enterprise-grade product experiences.
  • Use AI tools thoughtfully to accelerate prototyping, iteration, production changes, and system maintenance while applying strong judgment to the output.

What skills and experience do you need?
  • 6+ years of experience designing and building production frontend experiences, ideally in complex B2B SaaS, enterprise software, developer tools, or similarly deep product domains.
  • Strong frontend engineering skills with modern web technologies and component-based architecture. You do not need to have used Front's exact stack, but you should be able to ramp quickly in a large, mature codebase.
  • High UI/UX craft and strong product taste. You can evaluate whether an interface is not only visually polished, but also usable, accessible, flexible, and maintainable.
  • Experience building or maintaining component libraries, Storybook documentation, visual regression workflows, design-token pipelines, Figma workflows/plugins, or similar design-engineering infrastructure.
  • Strong accessibility fundamentals, including semantic HTML, ARIA patterns, keyboard interaction models, focus management, and inclusive component states.
  • Strong communication skills. You can explain technical and design-system decisions clearly to both specialists and non-specialists.
  • A portfolio or body of work showing shipped design-engineering impact: production UI, component systems, prototypes, Storybook examples, design-system documentation, or code-backed product work.

Bonus points
  • Experience working on products with a large existing frontend surface area, multiple product teams, and a mature or evolving design system.
  • Experience in customer support, customer operations, collaboration software, internal tools, developer tools, or other workflow-heavy SaaS products.
  • Experience consolidating fragmented component libraries or aligning Figma libraries with production code.
  • Experience using AI-assisted coding or design tools to accelerate prototyping, refactoring, and product iteration.

What you'll bring to Front
  • A systems mindset: you see patterns, edge cases, and long-term maintenance costs, not just individual screens.
  • A high craft bar: you care about the last 10% of interaction detail, visual polish, accessibility, and usability.
  • A builder's bias: you prefer to make ideas real in code, learn from how they behave, and iterate quickly.
  • A collaborative approach: you raise the quality of work around you by making the right path easier for other designers and engineers.
  • Senior-level judgment: you can operate through ambiguity, prioritize high-leverage improvements, and sequence change in a way that teams can actually adopt

Front operates on a hybrid model - we come together in the office each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to collaborate and stay connected.
What we offer
  • Competitive salary
  • Equity (we are post-series D & backed by some of the best VCs in the US)
  • Private health insurance, including plan options at no cost to employees
  • Paid parental leave
  • Flexible time off policy
  • Flexibility to work from home Monday and Friday, unless posted as a fully remote role
  • Mental health support with Workplace Options
  • Family planning support with Maven
  • $100 per month Lifestyle Stipend to spend on fitness, health and wellness, and other activities
  • Wellness Days - Fronteers get an additional day off on months with no holidays
  • Winter Break - Our offices are closed from Christmas to New Year's Day!

Front provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age or disability. By applying, you acknowledge and agree that you have read and understand the California Recruiting Privacy Notice & EU Privacy Notice

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