telli was founded in 2024. We were part of the YC Fall ‘24 batch. In the last couple of months, we’ve grown to 6-figure ARR and raised a $3.6M seed from investors including Cherry Ventures, Y Combinator, and great strategic angels

about us

At telli, we're building the first AI-native phone system.

Since launching last year at Y Combinator (the same investors behind Airbnb, Stripe, Twitch, Coinbase, and others), we've grown >$2M in annualized revenue with a team of only 12 people.

Today, many companies fail in their customer communication not because they don't care, but because they can't keep up. The sheer volume of calls forces to rely on low-quality outsourced call centers or have their internal teams waste hours on repetitive calls.

With telli, our customers now rely on AI voice agents that handle their repetitive calls, freeing human to focus on what matters - talking to customers when it counts. The result: higher efficiency, happier teams, and better customer experiences.

Legacy phone systems weren’t designed for an AI-first world. That is why we are building the first AI-native phone system that lets companies manage both their human and AI teams on one platform.

Our founding team knows this problem inside-out. We ran a 150-person internal call center at Enpal. We know how difficult and expensive it is to scale high-quality customer experience with phone calls.

The opportunity is massive!!! and we're just getting started. We're on a mission to let every company provide a world-class customer experience by ending the era of low-quality call centers.

about the role

This is a high-ownership role for a founding designer who cares about velocity and solving real customer problems. You won't just create mockups, you will own the entire design process end-to-end, speaking directly to customers and making core product and UX decisions. In short, you’ll have a significant impact on the direction of our high-growth, ambitious product.

You'll be our first full-time designer — with ownership over UX and UI across the entire product. This means you need to be comfortable designing for complex, AI-first workflows while maintaining the simplicity that makes our product accessible to non-technical users.

what you will do

• collaborate closely with customers to understand their needs and design solutions that solve their problems

• own the design process end-to-end for new features

• identify new AI product opportunities, design concepts, and build prototypes with our customers

• create new intuitive interfaces that make sense in an AI-first world where traditional UI patterns don't apply

• work side-by-side with engineers to ship high-quality features quickly

your profile

• work experience designing UX and UI for software, ideally in early-stage startups working on B2B SaaS products

• you have great attention to detail and exceptional skills in product design (interaction design, visual design, and design systems)

• you don’t limit yourself to just static designs in Figma, but build interactive prototypes (with tools like v0, Lovable, Cursor, or Figma Make etc.).

• you love talking to customers to uncover real pain points and can independently drive the design processes from discovery through launch

• you thrive in fast-paced and ambiguous environments. You’re comfortable with uncertainty, learn quickly from mistakes, and focus on what matters.

• you care about shipping production-ready software, and have an eye for high-quality, well-crafted visual and interaction design, and a passion for UI details

• you have a strong interest in AI and LLMs, and you’re excited by the design challenges of voice interfaces.

what makes you a great fit

• you align with our principles

• you take full ownership of projects

• you want to work in-person in Berlin

• you know what it takes to succeed in a fast-paced, high-ambiguity environment

• you know how to prioritize high-leverage work

• you want to work with a smart and driven team with (self-reported) low ego

• you want to help build a multi-billion dollar company from the ground up

• strong portfolio showcasing your work on complex, user-centered products

you may not make a good fit if…

• you prefer a remote-first environment

• you like to work on your own with minimum collaboration

• you have no prior experience working with software engineering teams

• you only want to work on visual design instead of the entire user experience

• you think AI is just "hype" and doesn't provide real value

• you want to work 9-5

perks

• above-market pay & equity

• access to any (AI) tool that makes you more productive

• gym subscription

• relocation support if you don't live in Berlin

our tech stack includes TypeScript, React, TanStack, Node, Python, Postgres as well as Temporal.io and Pipecat. But more than familiarity with any specific technology, we value a customer-centric approach and ability to ship end-to-end features.