Design Engineer, Contract, Remote: Front End for RentLow’s Austin Launch.

RentLow is a rental marketplace launching in Austin, Texas in spring 2027. Renters name the rent they’ll pay, their offer goes blind to every matching building, landlords say yes or no within 48 hours, and the renter sees only the yeses. Nobody has built this before, and the interface has to make a new idea feel obvious in under three minutes. We need one person who can design and build the launch surface: landing page, the bid flow, the renter dashboard (responses, compare, pick), the landlord response page, and the transactional emails. The brand exists (RentLow green, a clear tone, “Stop applying. Start receiving.”) and the back end works. What’s missing is craft. What you’ll do Design the screens and states in Figma, with a small token system (type, colour, spacing) we keep. Build them in our stack: Next.js/React, Tailwind or structured CSS, Framer Motion where motion earns its place. Mobile first; leasing offices read on desktop. Ship every state: empty, loading, error, success, edge. Accessibility to WCAG AA. Hand off clean components our technical lead can own after you. What we’re looking for Three live sites you designed and built that you’re proud of. Portfolio decides; CV is secondary. Multi-step forms that convert, ideally marketplace or fintech. Dashboards alone aren’t enough. Taste you can explain: why this type, why this spacing, what you cut. No template aesthetics. If your default is Inter, white cards and a purple gradient, this isn’t the one. At least two hours of daily overlap with Central European mornings (08:00 to 12:00 CET). Engagement Roughly 150 to 250 hours over six to eight weeks, then a light retainer through launch in January. Remote; team in Barcelona, Houston and Austin. Shortlisted candidates get a paid 4-hour test task before we decide. To apply: three links and two sentences on which one you’d redo and why. Proposals without links won’t be read.