AI Applied Scientist (AI)

Location: Remote in the United States or onsite at Figma hubs in San Francisco, CA or New York, NY

Annual base salary: $153,000–$376,000 USD

Company

Figma builds a collaborative design platform that helps teams brainstorm, prototype, translate designs into code, and develop products with AI.

What you will do

• Drive fundamental and applied AI research and explore new model capabilities for Figma's domains.
• Build generative AI models using supervised fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, prompt improvements, and synthetic data generation.
• Design and build AI/ML models and systems that improve Figma products and AI-powered features.
• Collaborate with product managers, product engineers, and infrastructure engineers to turn user feedback into AI system requirements.
• Build evaluation systems to measure and improve the quality of AI features.

Requirements

• Extensive experience building generative AI features through prompt engineering and production model fine-tuning.
• Experience with deep learning and generative AI frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or HuggingFace.
• Experience training large language models with reinforcement learning techniques including DPO, PPO, RLVR, GRPO, or DAPO.
• 4+ years of generative AI experience and 6+ years in machine learning, natural language processing, or computer vision.
• 5+ years of programming experience with Python, C++, Java, or R, plus strong software engineering skills.
• Experience communicating and working across functions to drive solutions.

Nice to have

• Experience planning multi-year roadmaps that connect short-term projects to a long-term vision.
• Experience mentoring or influencing senior engineers across organizations.
• Expertise in large-scale and distributed AI training.
• Experience with reinforcement learning from execution feedback for coding or non-verifiable rewards.

Culture & Benefits

• Equity and a competitive benefits package.
• Health, dental, and vision coverage, retirement benefits with company contributions, and paid time off.
• Parental leave, reproductive and family planning support, and mental health and wellness benefits.
• Paid sick leave, holidays, flexible PTO for eligible exempt employees, and possible recharge days.
• Home internet and cell phone reimbursements and lifestyle spending accounts may be available.

Hiring process

• Interview evaluation considers qualifications, skills, relevant experience, potential impact, and role scope.
• Video interviews require candidates to keep their cameras on.
• Successful candidates must attend in-person onboarding.