Design Engineer - Requirements & Product Design

IGSA is an AI company born out of the Matsuo-Iwasawa Lab at the University of Tokyo. Like tatami woven from igusa rushes, we pursue sustainable happiness through AI systems that support society warmly, softly, and from beneath.

This position joins IGSA X, our business that rebuilds both business operations and core systems with AI as the premise, working alongside clients end to end from design through operation. We are neither a business-transformation consultancy nor a system development vendor: we design and implement operations and systems together in the same project. Our main clients are companies where on-the-ground operations are at the heart of the business. Our track record includes bringing core business systems to production in a fraction of the timeline expected of conventional system integrators, and extends from private companies to university research institutions and government.

IGSA itself runs its own management and development AI-natively, practicing daily the same methods and verification design we deliver to clients. Learn more on the IGSA X website.

We are looking for a Design Engineer to turn client needs into experience and screens on IGSA X projects. You will talk with clients directly, give shape to the specification, reach agreement through prototypes, and build it out.

IGSA X delivery runs on four roles: a Lead Engineer who owns the project as a whole, a Project Manager who defines requirements and keeps the project moving, a Design Engineer who designs and builds the experience and screens, and an Applied AI Engineer who implements it quickly with AI. You do not need to cover all of them: join from where your strength is, and the team covers the rest. What this position owns is the quality of the experience.

In core system projects, going into implementation while requirements are still vague drives up back-and-forth and holds down the quality of the experience. Our biggest expectation is that you take this on and structurally reduce that rework. This is not a design-only role: we expect you to get hands-on and carry things through to something concrete.

We have designers in mind for this role, and experience in requirements definition or implementation is not required. You will work with our engineers. If you can cover several of the four roles, we will also consider you for the Lead Engineer position.

You can join either full-time or on a contract basis, and starting as side work and switching to full-time later is also possible.

• Understanding client needs through direct conversation, and turning them into PRDs and requirements
• Designing screens, features, and business flows, and reaching agreement through prototypes
• Building AI-powered workflows and prototypes
• Driving implementation in collaboration with engineers

• Experience writing product specifications (PRDs, requirements) yourself and moving development forward with them
• Experience drawing out needs in direct conversation with clients or business stakeholders
• Ability to get hands-on and turn ideas into prototypes or working features

• Experience building AI workflows or agents (Claude Code, workflow builders, and the like)
• Experience leading a development team (engineering management)
• Design experience in business or core systems
• Practical experience with screen design and UI design

• Someone who sits between product, software, and design, and can carry work through to something concrete
• Someone who can take vague requests and firm them into specifications through repeated conversation
• Someone who does not stop at design, but builds

• Interview with the business lead
• Interview with the CEO
• Practical exercise (writing a PRD and screen proposal from a realistic request)
• Alignment on terms and contract

If you are interested, please apply via the application form. It helps if you can walk us through a product you shaped from specification, or an AI workflow you built.