Design Engineer (m/w/d)

About Buena

Buena is building the technology that real estate runs on. We're making every part of real estate – from finding and financing to buying and managing – as seamless and transparent as possible. We do this by acquiring property managers across Germany and rebuilding them as technology companies. In under two years and with fewer than 25 people at HQ, we've already become Germany's second-largest property manager. The next trillion dollar company in real estate won't sell software. It will run the industry.

What this role actually is

This isn't a frontend engineer with a design title, and it isn't a designer who prototypes and throws it over the wall. The value is in one head holding both. When you understand what the data model can do, the design gets simpler; when you've designed the interaction, you know what the backend actually needs.

Property management is a mess of real-world workflows: accounting, owner communication, maintenance, contracts - and untangling them takes someone who can move between the interface and the system underneath in the same afternoon.

AI has raised the floor: anyone can generate a passable screen now. Your job is the ceiling - the taste, judgment, and interaction craft it can't produce. You'll prototype fast and put real screens in front of property managers early, because a prototype convincing enough to use is how we kill weak ideas and back the right ones.

Responsibilities:

• Designing, building, and shipping product UI end-to-end, from early ideas to rollout and iteration.

• Owning the visual and interaction quality of the product: spacing, typography, motion, hierarchy, and setting the bar for how Buena looks and feels.

• Translating dense operational workflows (accounting, contracts, maintenance, owner communication) into simple, reliable, AI-enabled interfaces

• Building in code. You prototype fast, put real screens in front of property managers, and let feedback drive the next iteration.

• Help us shape design and frontend culture as we grow, be it our design system, component standards, or workflow optimizations.

You may be a good fit if you:

• You have designed and built production web UI end-to-end, and are comfortable owning surfaces from idea through deployment and iteration.

• You are proficient in TypeScript with strong experience in React/Next.js and modern CSS

• You have a sharp, opinionated eye for design and care about the details that make an interface feel polished

• You are comfortable enough with the backend (Node.js, GraphQL, Postgres) to wire up what your front end needs.

• You take ownership seriously: You care about outcomes, move quickly, and are comfortable making decisions in ambiguous situations without waiting for perfect specifications.

• German helps in day-to-day domain context and is a strong plus, but not required.

• You enjoy working onsite 5 days a week.

Your Benefits:

• Up to €500 close-to-office bonus, if you decide to live within 10-20 mins walking distance to our office.

• 20 Remote days per year you can spend anywhere you want

• €110/month lunch budget, €50 fitness subsidy.

• €1,200 yearly education budget.

• Free books: Buena pays for any book you'd like to read.

Why you should apply now:

• We're high-growth with a small, tight-knit team: Within the past 3 years we have become Germany's second largest property manager with less than 25 full-time employees.

• We're meritocratic: Your impact gets rewarded, quickly. Our CEO was a Junior Product Manager 3 years ago, our COO was a Chief of Staff 2 years ago.

• We're personal: We work from our office in Prenzlauer Berg and place high value on knowing each other well.

• We care about outcomes: Homeownership rates in Germany are far below the European average. We're here to enable wealth creation for everyone.