Do you place non-AI designers (UX Research, Motion, Brand)?

Yes. AI-native designers are our lead, but classic UX Research, Motion, Brand, and Marketing Web designers are on the same bench.

How do you screen for product judgment, not just craft?

Vetting includes Figma craft + handoff quality + AI-product judgment (streaming UI, tool calls, agent flows). Designers must defend decisions on real product work, not Dribbble shots.

What does it cost to hire a US designer through Aperturio?

$10,000 flat per direct hire — same fee whether the role is a $110K product designer or a $230K Head of Design. No retainer, no seats.

AI-Native Design · Product · UX · US

Ship AI-native product and brand design without hiring drag.

Vetted US product, UX, and brand designers who design for LLM-native products and prototype in real code — v0, Lovable, Bolt, Cursor, Claude. Full-time or fractional. Pay only when you hire.

Start a hire →Request sample profiles

Full-time or fractional · $10,000 flat per hire · A real recruiter reviews every candidate

AI-native roles · what we lead with

Prioritized for who you are and where you're going.

AI Product Designer

Designs for streaming UIs, tool calling, structured outputs, and agentic flows. Understands the UX of "the model is thinking" and the failure modes of generative interfaces. Ships in v0 / Cursor side-by-side with engineering.

Product Designer (UI/UX)

User flows, hi-fi UI, prototyping, UX writing. Moves features from spec → shipped with tight PM/Eng loops. Comfortable prototyping in code (v0, Lovable, Bolt) when it's faster than Figma.

Design Engineer

Designs and ships the same week. React + Tailwind native, Vercel AI SDK aware, builds production UI from a prompt. The role that's eating the Figma-to-handoff cycle.

Design Systems

Tokens, components, accessibility, docs. Treats the design system as a library shipped to engineering — versioned, tested, governed.

Brand / Visual Designer

Identity, visual language, marketing creative, motion. Uses generative tools (Figma AI, Midjourney v7, Sora) as a multiplier without making everything look the same.

Head of Design

Senior leader who owns AI-product and brand voice, hires the team, sets the eval discipline for design quality, and partners with PM + engineering on AI features.

Also placing — classic, non-AI roles

Not every role needs an LLM. We still place the classic tracks on the same bench, same human review, same per-hire model.

UX ResearcherProblem mapping, interviews, usability tests, insight readouts.
Motion / Video DesignerLottie, After Effects, MP4 for onboarding, explainers, social.
Marketing / Web DesignerLanding pages, ads, social, Framer / Webflow. Fast iteration for growth teams.
Brand StrategistPositioning, naming, voice, identity systems — research to creative direction.
IllustratorEditorial illustration, custom iconography, product spot work.
Print / Editorial DesignerPitch decks, reports, fundraising materials, founder-facing collateral.

We vet

Beyond the resume.

Culture screening, AI-assisted skills assessment, expert human review. A real recruiter signs off before any candidate reaches you.

AI-product judgment

Understands streaming, tool calls, structured output, agent flows, and when LLM output should be hidden vs. surfaced. Designs around model failure modes.

Prompt-driven prototyping

Ships prototypes in v0 / Lovable / Bolt / Cursor when faster than Figma. Comfortable with code-as-design output.

Figma craft

Autolayout, variants, tokens, components, prototyping. Still the lingua franca — fluent.

Handoff that closes the loop

Specs, annotations, edge cases. Pairs with engineering on real product code, not over-the-wall mocks.

Accessibility & systems thinking

Contrast, focus, semantics. Libraries / governance / versioning at scale.

Stage fit

A great Series B designer is a terrible Seed designer. We screen for the stage and the AI maturity you're at.

Outcomes we drive

AI features that feel like product, not demos
Faster cycles when designers prototype in code, not just Figma
Higher conversion on landings, onboarding, and AI feature flows
Lower design debt with components / tokens that stick
Consistent brand across product, marketing, and AI surfaces

Sample profiles

Representative of the bench — share your requirements for live profiles.

Alex P.

AI Product Designer (FT)

Ships in v0 + Cursor · designed streaming + tool-calling UI for prod AI · pairs with eng on real code · prior YC AI-tools team.

Jordan H.

Design Engineer (Fractional)

React + Tailwind + Vercel AI SDK · ships production UI weekly · Figma fluent · prior FAANG design-eng team.

Sam V.

Brand / Visual Designer (FT or 20–30 hrs/wk)

Identity systems · motion · uses generative tools as a multiplier · prior portfolio at AI-native YC + a16z-backed startups.

New in 2026

Now callable via /hire in Slack.

Same vetted US bench. New way to brief a role. Type /hire in Slack — or any MCP-connected tool — and our sourcing agents plus human recruiters take it from there. Same $10,000 flat-per-hire model.

How /hire works →For agentic teams

Add the AI designer. Ship the product.

Start a hire →Talk to us

Common questions

Do you place non-AI designers (UX Research, Motion, Brand)?: Yes. AI-native designers are our lead, but classic UX Research, Motion, Brand, and Marketing Web designers are on the same bench.
How do you screen for product judgment, not just craft?: Vetting includes Figma craft + handoff quality + AI-product judgment (streaming UI, tool calls, agent flows). Designers must defend decisions on real product work, not Dribbble shots.
What does it cost to hire a US designer through Aperturio?: $10,000 flat per direct hire — same fee whether the role is a $110K product designer or a $230K Head of Design. No retainer, no seats.