Staff Design Engineer

Campfire is hiring a Staff Design Engineer in San Francisco, United States. It pays $180k-$250k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Campfire.

Level's read on this job

Level rates this role Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
The posting mentions product design, systems thinking and ux design among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as a senior role.
Campfire has 50 other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

Shape core experiences and complex workflows for an enterprise ERP platform as a senior individual-contributor design engineer.

product-designsystems-thinkingux-designdesign-systemsfintech

Please note: This role is in-office in San Francisco at our headquarters working with the entire company five days per week. We are not open to remote candidates.

About Us

Campfire builds modern ERP software for finance teams — bringing accounting, close, and reporting workflows into one fast, intuitive system. We're a small, senior team obsessed with craft, speed, and making complex financial software feel simple to use.

About the Role🌟

We're looking for a Staff Design Engineer to help shape the core experience of Campfire's ERP platform. You'll take on our thorniest, highest-leverage design problems — the ones that touch multiple teams, span complex workflows, and require deep systems thinking. This is a senior individual-contributor role: you'll set design direction, raise the bar for craft across the team, and partner directly with engineering and product leadership to ship work that materially changes how finance teams operate.

You'll have significant ownership over ambiguous, cross-cutting problems (think: reimagining the general ledger experience, or designing a coherent system for how data flows between modules) rather than a single feature area.

💼 We Need Someone Who

Own end-to-end design for complex, ambiguous problem spaces spanning multiple product areas — from framing the problem to shipping and iterating post-launch
Partner with product and engineering leads as a peer, shaping roadmap and strategy, not just executing against a spec
Design for dense, data-heavy workflows (tables, ledgers, reconciliation, reporting) in a way that stays clear and fast to use
Strengthen and evolve Campfire's design system and interaction patterns so the product feels coherent as it grows
Mentor other designers, give sharp critique, and raise the craft bar across the team
Talk directly to customers — finance and accounting teams — to ground design decisions in how they actually work
Drive design reviews and help the team make faster, better-informed decisions

👥 Ideal Candidate

8+ years of product design experience, with a track record of owning complex, high-impact product areas end to end
Experience designing for data-dense, workflow-heavy software (fintech, ERP, dev tools, B2B SaaS, or similar) is a strong plus
Strong systems thinking — you can zoom out to see how a feature fits the broader product, and zoom in on pixel-level details
A portfolio that shows range: 0-to-1 work, and rigorous iteration on existing systems
Excellent communication skills; you can build alignment with engineers, PMs, and executives, and explain design rationale clearly
Comfort working in ambiguity, with incomplete requirements, and evolving your own scope
Prior experience at an early- or growth-stage startup, with a bias toward shipping over perfecting in isolation
Able to code your own prototypes (HTML/CSS and enough JavaScript to build interactive, functional mockups)

📢 Let's Connect

Think you're the perfect fit? We're excited to meet you! Reach out, share your story, and let's explore how you can ignite change at Campfire.

❤️‍🩹 Benefits

We provide top decile benefits including 100% premium coverage for employees and 80% coverage for dependents with comprehensive healthcare and dental care options.

How we rate this

Staff Design Engineer at Campfire rates 0 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Staff Design Engineer is an open job at Campfire.
Level rates this role AI Level 1 of 4: Little AI.
The listed salary is $180k-$250k a year.
The role is based in San Francisco.
The job was posted on September 17, 2026.
Seniority: senior.
Applications are handled by Campfire. Apply on Campfire

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Product DesignSystems ThinkingUX DesignDesign SystemsFintech

Questions you could be asked

Tell me about a project where product design was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where systems thinking was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where ux design was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where design systems was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where fintech was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Product Design, Systems Thinking, UX Design, Design Systems, and Fintech. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.

Get your CV reviewed before you apply

Send your CV and the role you want next. Your review arrives by email within 3 days.

Get a free CV review Check your resume with the ATS resume checker