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Ship Design Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Circleback AI, Inc

Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$150K - $220K/yr

Build and evolve our design system-components, patterns, tokens-so quality scales as we ship faster ... Work directly with engineers and founders on product direction-you'll shape what we build, not just ...

Sim

Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$160K - $220K/yr

On our lean team, you'll influence everything the user interacts with and rapidly ship features ... Shape how developers interact: design, test, debug, and deploy agents seamlessly within the product

Cartesia

Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$180K - $250K/yr

Our team combines deep expertise in model innovation and systems engineering paired with a design-minded product engineering team to build and ship cutting edge models and experiences. We're funded ...

Jinba

Founding Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$100K - $250K/yr

You'll build our design system from the ground up, create motion that makes complex workflows feel intuitive, and ship production code alongside the engineering team. This is a founding design role ...

Tessera Labs

Design Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$179K - $250K/yr

You won't just document the design system - you'll build it, ship it, and evolve it. You'll partner directly with designers, product, and engineering, and as the platform expands, you'll have real ...

Metriport

Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$140K - $180K/yr

Design Engineer Metriport is an open-source data intelligence platform that helps healthcare ... You know what to polish and what to ship. You walk the tightrope between craft and speed without ...

Cursor

Design Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

The design engineer will work closely with the founding team to create and refine user experiences ... ship faster Qualifications : Required : • You're equally comfortable in Figma and your code ...

Givebutter, Inc

Design Engineer

New York, NY · On-site +1

$150K - $170K/yr

Role Description Givebutter is hiring a Design Engineer to join our Growth pod. It's a rare role ... You'll ship real code on our Astro-based marketing site, and occasionally collaborate with our 3rd ...

Anysphere, Inc

Design Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

Contribute to design systems and component libraries that enable the team to ship faster You might ... You have strong front-end engineering skills (TypeScript, React, SolidJS, CSS, animations) * You ...

Ramp

Design Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$172K - $440K/yr

About the Role As a Design Engineer at Ramp, you sit at the intersection of design and front-end ... Ship work that is fast, accessible, and robust. Pay attention to semantics, focus states, reduced ...

Pace

Design Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

You'll shape how Pace looks, feels, and works - and ship it. What makes a Design Engineer different from a Product Designer? Both roles care deeply about craft, systems thinking, and user experience.

Warp

Design Engineer

New York, NY · On-site

$140K - $230K/yr

We hire people who ship constantly, own outcomes, and care about craft. We're in the office five ... As a Design Engineer at Warp, you'll be directly responsible for curating the user experience of ...

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Ship Design Engineer information

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How much do ship design engineer jobs pay per hour?

As of Jul 7, 2026, the average hourly pay for ship design engineer in the United States is $50.69, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $39.18 and $61.78 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are Ship Design Engineers?

Ship Design Engineers are professionals who specialize in designing and developing ships, boats, and other marine vessels. They apply principles of engineering, physics, and material science to create safe, efficient, and functional watercraft. Their work includes designing ship structures, propulsion systems, and onboard systems, as well as ensuring compliance with maritime regulations. Ship Design Engineers collaborate with naval architects, marine engineers, and shipbuilders throughout the design and construction process. They play a crucial role in advancing marine technology and ensuring the seaworthiness of vessels.

What are some common challenges faced by Ship Design Engineers when working on multidisciplinary teams?

Ship Design Engineers often collaborate with professionals from various disciplines, including naval architects, mechanical engineers, and electrical engineers. One common challenge is ensuring clear communication and integration of systems across these specialties, as design decisions in one area can significantly impact others. Balancing regulatory compliance, safety standards, and client requirements while managing tight project timelines can also be demanding. Effective teamwork, adaptability, and proactive problem-solving are key to overcoming these challenges and delivering successful ship designs.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Ship Design Engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Ship Design Engineer, you need a solid background in naval architecture, marine engineering, and structural analysis, typically supported by a degree in naval architecture or related engineering field. Proficiency in CAD software (such as AutoCAD or Rhino), finite element analysis tools, and familiarity with classification society standards are crucial. Strong problem-solving abilities, teamwork, and effective communication skills help you collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and address complex design challenges. These skills are essential to ensure safe, efficient, and innovative vessel designs that meet regulatory and operational requirements.

What is the difference between Ship Design Engineer vs Naval Architect?

AspectShip Design EngineerNaval Architect
CredentialsBachelor's or Master's in Marine Engineering, Naval Architecture, or related fieldsBachelor's or Master's in Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, or related disciplines
Work EnvironmentDesign offices, shipyards, engineering firmsDesign offices, shipyards, research institutions
Industry UsageDesigning ship structures, systems, and layoutsConceptual and detailed design of ships, hull form, stability

Ship Design Engineers focus on developing detailed ship designs, systems, and technical specifications, often working on specific components. Naval Architects have a broader role in conceptualizing ship structures, hull forms, and overall vessel stability. Both roles require similar qualifications and often collaborate during the shipbuilding process, but Naval Architects typically oversee the overall design concept, while Ship Design Engineers handle detailed engineering tasks.

More about Ship Design Engineer jobs
What job categories do people searching Ship Design Engineer jobs look for? The top searched job categories for Ship Design Engineer jobs are:
Ship Design Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Ship Design Engineer job openings in the United States as of July 2026, with employment types broken down into 89% Full Time, 8% Part Time, and 3% Contract. Highlights an 87% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 10% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $105,435 per year, or $50.7 per hour.

Design Engineer

Circleback AI, Inc

San Francisco, CA • On-site

$150K - $220K/yr

Full-time

Posted 16 days ago

Job description

We're looking for a design engineer who obsesses over how software looks and feels to join us in San Francisco. You'll own the product surface end-to-end-from concept to pixel-perfect production code-and make Circleback's design go from really good to elite.
What you'll do
Most companies split design and engineering into separate roles, separate teams, separate conversations. We don't want that. We want one person who can look at a feature, know how it should work, open Figma, open their editor, and ship it. No handoff. No fidelity gap. What you design is what users get.
Circleback already has a product that customers love. Your job is to take that foundation and push it to the level of the best-designed software in the world. That means:
  • Own the design and frontend implementation of features across web (React, Next.js), desktop (Electron, Swift), and mobile (React Native)
  • Deeply understand customer problems and find elegant ways to solve them-Circleback deals in dense, conversational information, and making that feel effortless to navigate is a genuinely hard design problem
  • Craft interactions, animations, and transitions that make the product feel fast and alive
  • Build and evolve our design system-components, patterns, tokens-so quality scales as we ship faster
  • Sweat the details other people skip: loading states, empty states, error states, keyboard shortcuts, hover treatments, the feel of a drag interaction
  • Iterate quickly on experiments around onboarding, activation, and education
  • Work directly with engineers and founders on product direction-you'll shape what we build, not just how it looks
  • Prototype new ideas quickly in code, not just mockups-the best way to evaluate an interaction is to use it

Who you are
You're a designer who codes or an engineer with exceptional taste-either way, you can take an idea from sketch to shipped product without waiting on anyone else. You build things for fun. You've done this before, and you have a portfolio or shipped work that shows it.
You care about craft at a level most people find unreasonable. You'll iterate on an animation curve five times. You'll notice when padding is 3px off. You have strong opinions about typography, color, and spacing-and you can articulate why something feels wrong, not just that it does. You understand that the best product experiences are often invisible.
You're fast and pragmatic. You'd rather ship something great today than something perfect next month. You'd rather write a bit more code yourself than adopt a dependency. You're interested in the challenge of making powerful tools without compromising simplicity-and you can keep a broad set of customer perspectives in mind while doing it.
You're excited about AI as a tool-both in the product you're designing and in your own workflow. You use things like Cursor or Claude Code and have opinions about how AI should show up in product interfaces.
About Circleback
Circleback is building the source of truth for everything said at a company-starting with best-in-class AI meeting notes, action items, and search.
Every meeting will be AI-enabled. But meeting notes are just the beginning. We're building toward something larger: a platform that captures, organizes, and actions on the context from all conversations across a company-meetings, calls, emails-so teams can actually use what they know.
We're a small team backed by Y Combinator. Profitable, growing virally, and thousands of paying customers including PostHog, Browserbase, Gumloop, and more.
Why join
  • We ship fast with a high bar for quality
  • Small team, large problem-the product category we're building didn't exist until recently
  • Profitable and growing virally through word of mouth
  • Software that people actually love and use daily

If you care about craft and want to build something ambitious with a small team that moves quickly, we'd like to hear from you.

Apply