About the role
About vvd vvd is the modern storytelling toolkit — used today by thousands of worldbuilders, writers, game masters, and tabletop RPG creators. Think interactive maps, relationship graphs, a living wiki, rich text editor, real-time collab, custom-domain publishing. The long-term vision is the Substack for fiction : a place where people can build worlds, write campaigns and stories inside them, and share or monetize that work with a real audience. Bootstrapped, profitable trajectory, ~$500k ARR, founded out of Montreal by Zied Jebali (ex-Unity, ex-Ubisoft Montréal) and Haseeb S. The Substack-side newsletter has 57k+ subscribers and the Discord community is highly engaged. We're intentionally raising only from the right partner. You'd be employee #3 — our third full-time hire. What "Design Engineer" means here A front-end engineer with genuinely good taste. You can take an idea, break it down, design it, and ship a polished, interactive version of it without waiting for a perfect spec. You live where how things look meets how they work — you don't just design screens, you build them, and you obsess over whether they feel right . You don't need to be a deep backend engineer, but you understand the stack end-to-end (APIs, auth, data flow, Postgres / SQL basics) well enough that nothing blocks you.
What you'll do Design and implement features end-to-end — concept → design → production. Own the front-end experience: layout, interaction, motion, polish. Work directly with the founders. Iterate in hours, not weeks. Move fast with AI-powered dev tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) — at vvd this is the default way of building, not a novelty. Shape the product itself, not just execute on tickets. We want your opinion. Communicate directly. No corporate padding. What we care about Taste. This is the single biggest filter. We'll look at your portfolio first. Genuine aesthetic judgment, not pixel-counting. You've shipped real things. Side projects, indie launches, class projects, small apps — anything you can walk us through: what you built, why, what broke, and how you solved it. Creative-tools DNA. You've worked on video games, creative SaaS, design tools, or another product where craft matters. Or you're a worldbuilder / writer / TTRPG player yourself — you get the audience. Startup energy. People who've been founders (even if the company went nowhere), early hires, or builders who ship on the side stand out. Ownership > pedigree. We don't care where you went to school or which logos are on your resume. Specifically Strong front-end chops: React, TypeScript, Next.js (or similar). Comfortable enough with backend to be dangerous — APIs, auth, data flow, Postgres / SQL basics. You can go from a rough idea to a polished, interactive implementation without a perfect spec. You use AI tools daily as a multiplier (Cursor, Claude Code) — prompt well, iterate, ship at a high quality bar. You've built interactions and motion that felt good , not just functional. Extra pluses Figma or similar for rapid prototyping. You read fiction, build worlds, run a TTRPG game on weekends, or otherwise create things for fun. You care about accessibility and inclusive UX. Where you'll work Fully remote, with strong preference for time-zone overlap with Montreal. Canada preferred: Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto. We get Canadian hiring subsidies and can support relocation conversations. Remote OK in Western Europe: Berlin, Munich, and similar (Germany, UK, France work well historically). Main operating time zones: North America + Western Europe. Comp $120k–$150k USD/CAD + equity. Final offer depends on level and location.
