Research Scientist, Animation Direction, Level 4 Job at Snap Inc. in Seattle
Snap Inc., Seattle, WA, United States, 98127
Overview
Snap Inc. is a technology company focused on camera-based experiences. We are looking for a Research Scientist to join the Computational Imaging Research Team in NYC. The team enhances user experiences with photo and short-form video products and enables creators to make Lenses more easily in Lens Studio. Our 2025 focus includes improving image and video quality (quality assessment, video super resolution, compression, image editing) and animations (animation generation, 3D avatar, video generation for animations). Research areas include computer vision, computational imaging/photography, 3D motion/video generation, efficient large language models, and more.
What you'll do
Propose and develop cutting-edge multimodal techniques for 3D human animation and video generation — enabling expressive Bitmoji avatars and next-gen Snapchat video generation experiences
Build models that map text, audio, video, and music to 3D animation and drive downstream tasks such as background video generation for animation rendering and audio-driven lip-synced video generation
Advance avatar technologies including animatable 3D Gaussian avatars, head/body reconstruction, and animation control
Collaborate with product teams to deploy research at scale and publish at top-tier academic venues
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
Ability to define impactful research problems and deliver practical solutions, both in academic and product contexts
Deep expertise in human motion modeling, facial/body animation, and generative modeling (e.g., text-to-motion, text-to-image, text-to-video)
Familiarity with video generation, avatar representations (e.g., mesh, NeRF, Gaussian), and rendering pipelines
Strong prototyping and engineering skills (Python, PyTorch, C++), with experience in large-scale distributed ML training on GCP/AWS
Proven ability to lead and mentor interns, PhD students, and junior researchers, and to collaborate effectively with product teams
Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills
Minimum Qualifications
PhD in a technical field such as Computer Science or Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience
Hands-on experience with mainstream generative models (Diffusion, Transformers, GANs, VAEs) for animation or video
Research or product experience in 3D human motion generation, image/video generation, 3D avatar reconstruction and animation, or multimodal generation
Preferred Qualifications
Publications in top-tier venues (e.g., CVPR, SIGGRAPH, NeurIPS, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR) or contributions to open-source projects
Experience with large-scale dataset curation and distributed ML model training for image/video generation
Strong foundation in computer vision, 3D graphics, and multimodal learning
Policies & Benefits
"Default Together" policy: Snap expects team members to work in an office 4+ days per week. Snap is an equal opportunity employer and provides employment opportunities regardless of race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, or other protected status in accordance with applicable laws. EOE, including disability/vets. If you require accommodations, please contact accommodations-ext@snap.com.
Our Benefits: Snap offers paid parental leave, comprehensive medical coverage, mental health support, and compensation benefits aligned with Snap’s long-term success. For accommodations or disability-related needs, please use the provided resources.
Compensation
In the United States, pay is organized into zones with ranges set by location. The base salary ranges are:
Zone A (CA, WA, NYC): $173,000-$259,000
Zone B: $164,000-$246,000
Zone C: $147,000-$220,000
This position is eligible for equity in the form of RSUs. The starting pay is determined by skills, experience, location, and market conditions and may be negotiable within the stated range.
Additional resources: A Decade of Snap; CitizenSnap; The DEI Innovation Summit; Snap News; Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy.